


More Than One||Harry Potter X Reader

by Xx_the_wierd_girl_xX



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:13:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 40,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27975648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xx_the_wierd_girl_xX/pseuds/Xx_the_wierd_girl_xX
Summary: >||Chapters in this book are long!||||Turning the envelope over,their hands trembling,Harry and (Y/N) saw purple wax seals bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger and a snake surrounding a large letter "H". Thus starting an unknown and magical adventures in the future.||~||Years 1-7||~~{I do not own Harry Potter all rights go to jk Rowling.}~
Relationships: Harry Potter & Reader, Harry Potter/Reader, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	1. ~Year One~  ||Chapter One|| The Girl Who Lived

Key:  
(Y/N) - your name  
(L/N) -last name  
(W/N)- wrong name  
(F/N)-fathers name  
M/N-mothers name  
Y/F/I- your first initial  
Please let me know if I've forgotten to put anything in the key

Mr. and Mrs. Bell, of number five, Privet Drive, were proud to say they were perfectly normal in every way, thank you very much. They were the people you'd least expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.

Mr. Bell was a director, alongside Mr. Dursley, at a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. Mr. Bell was a tall, lanky man with just the right amount of neck, although he had a very small mustache. Mrs. Bell was short, medium-sized, (H/C), and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in handy as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbors with Mrs. Dursley. The Bells had a small daughter called *Mary-lee and in their opinion, there was no finer girl anywhere.

The Bells had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that someone other than the Dursley's would discover it. They didn't think they could bear it if anyone other than the Dursley's found out about the (L/N)s. Mrs (L/N) was Mr bell's sister, but they hadn't seen each other in several years; in fact, Mr bell pretended he didn't have a sister, because his sister and her good-for-nothing husband were as unBellish as it was possible to be. The bells shuddered to think what the neighbors would say if the (L/N)s arrived in the street. The bells knew that the (L/N)s had a small daughter, too, but they had never seen her. This girl was another good reason for keeping the (L/N) away; they didn't want Mary-lee mixing with a child like that.

When Mr. and Mrs. bell woke up on the dull, grey Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would be happening all over the country. Mr. Bell hummed as he picked out his most boring tie for work and Mrs. Bell gossiped away happily as she wrestled a screaming Mary-lee into her high chair.

None of them, not even the Dursleys, noticed a large tawny owl flutter past the window.  
At half-past eight, Mr. Bell picked up his briefcase, pecked Mrs. Bell on the cheek, and tried to kiss Mary-lee goodbye but missed, because Mary-lee was now having a tantrum and throwing her cereal at the walls. "Little tyke", chortled Mr. Bell as he left the house. He walked across the lawn to the Dursley's house, waving to Mrs. Dursley as Mr. Bell and Mr. Dursley get into the car and backed out of number four's drive.

It was on the corner of the street that Mr. Dursley and Mr. Bell noticed the first sign of something peculiar- a cat reading a map. For a second, both Mr. Dursley and Mr. Bell hadn't realized what they had seen- then they both jerked their heads around to look again. There was a tabby cat standing on the corner of Private Drive, but there wasn't a map in sight. They asked themselves, what could they have been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the light is what they told themselves. Mr. Dursley and Mr. Bell blinked and stared at the cat. It stared back. As Mr. Dursley drove around the corner and up the road, he watched the cat in the mirror as Mr bell turned around in his seat and watched through the back window. The cat was now reading the sign that said private drive - no, looking at the sign; cats couldn't trade maps or signs. Mr. Dursley and Mr. Bell gave themselves a little shake and put the cat out of their minds. As they drove towards the town they thought of nothing except a large order of drills they were hoping to get that day.

But on the edge of town, drills were driven out of their minds by something else. As they say in the usual morning traffic jam, they couldn't help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about. People in cloaks. Neither Mr. Dursley nor Mr bell could bear people who dressed in funny clothes- the get-ups you saw on young people! They supposed this was some stupid new fashion. Mr. Dursley drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and he fell on a huddle of these weirdos standing quite close by. Mr. Dursley tapped on Mr bells shoulder pointing out the huddle of weirdos. They were whispering excitedly together. Mr. Bell and Mr. Dursley were outraged to see that a couple of them weren't young at all; why that man had to be older than they were, and wearing an emerald-green cloak! The nerve of him! But then it struck the two that this was probably some silly little stunt - these people were obviously collecting for something...yes, that would be it. The traffic moved on and a few minutes later, Mr. Dursley and Bell arrived in the Grunnings car park, their minds back on drills.

Mr bell always stays with his back to the window in his office on the ninth floor. If he hadn't, he might have found it harder to concentrate on drills that morning. He didn't see the owls swooping past in broad daylight, though people down in the street did; they pointed and gazed open-mouthed as owl after owl sped overhead. Most of them had never seen an owl even at night-time. Mr. Bell, however, had a perfectly normal, owl-free morning. He yelled at five different people. He made several important phone calls and shouted a bit more. He and Mr. Dursley were both in a very good mood until lunchtime when they thought they would stretch their legs and walk across to road to get some buns from the baker's on the other side of the road.

They had forgotten all about the people in the cloaks until they passed a group of them next to the bakers. Mr. Dursley and Mr. Bell eyed them angrily as they passed. Neither Mr. Dursley nor Mr. Bell knew why, but the group made them uneasy. This lot was whispering excitedly, too, and they couldn't see a single collecting tin. It was on their way back past them, clutching large doughnuts in bags, that they caught a few words of what they were saying.

"The potters and the (L/N)s, that's right, that's what I herd-" 

"-yes their son, Harry, and their friend's daughter, (Y/N)-"

Both Mr. Dursley and Mr. Bell stopped dead. Fear flooded both of them. They looked back at the whisperers as if they wanted to say something to them, but they thought better of it.

Mr. Dursley and Mr. Bell looked at each other then dashed across the road, hurried up to their offices, both snapping at the secretary to not disturb them, Mr. Bell seized his telephone and had almost finished dialing his home number when he changed his mind. He put the receiver back down and stroked his mustache, thinking...no, he was being stupid. (L/N) wasn't such an unusual name. He was sure there were lots of people called (L/N) who had a daughter called (Y/N). Come to think of it, he wasn't even sure his niece was called (Y/N). He'd never seen the girl. It might have been (W/N). Or (W/N). There was no point in worrying Mrs. Bell, she always got upset at any mention of Mr. Bells' sister. He didn't blame her - if she'd had a sister like that...but all the same, those people in cloaks...

He and Mr. Dursley found it a lot harder to concentrate on drills that afternoon, and when he left the building at 5 o'clock, He and Mr. Dursley were still so worried that they walked straight into someone just outside the door.

"Sorry", He and Mr. Dursley grunted, as the tiny old man someone almost fell. It was a few seconds before Mr. Bell and Mr. Dursley realized that the man was wearing a violet cloak. He didn't seem at all upset at being almost knocked to the ground. On the contrary, his face split into a wide smile and he said In a squeaky voice that made passersby stare: " don't be sorry, my dear friends, for nothing could upset me today! Rejoice, for You-Know-Who has gone at last! Even muggles like yourselves should be celebrating, this happy, happy day!"

And the old man hugged both Mr. Bell and Mr. Dursley around the middle then walked off.

Mr. Dursley and Mr. Bell stood rooted to their spots. They had been hugged by a complete stranger. Mr. Dursley and Mr. Bell also thought that they had been called a Muggle, whatever that was. They were rattled. Mr. Dursley and Mr. Bell hurry to Mr. jerseys car and set off home, hoping they were imagining things, which they had never hoped before, because neither of them approved of imagination.

As the car pulled into the driveway of number four, the first thing they saw-and it didn't improve their mood-was the tabby cat they had spotted that morning. It was now sitting on Mr. Dursley's garden wall. They were sure it was the same one; it had the same markings around its eyes.

"Shoo!" Send Mr. Dursley loudly, after the cat didn't move Mr. Dursley gave up and went into the house.

After Mr. Dursley went into the house Mr. Bell tried to get the cat to move so he loudly exclaimed "shoo!".

The cat didn't move. He just gave him a stern look. Is this normal cat behavior, Mr. Bale wondered. Trying to put himself together, he let himself into the house. He was still determined not to mention anything to his wife.

Misspell had a nice, normal day. She told him over dinner about Miss next-door's problems with her daughter and how Mary-lee have learned a new word ("Shan't!"). Mr. Bell tries to act normally. When Mary-Lee had been put to bed he went into the living room in time to catch the last report on the evening news.

"And finally, birdwatchers everywhere have reported that the nation's owls have been behaving very unusually today. Although Owls normally hunt at night and are hardly ever seen in daylight, there have been hundreds of sightings of these birds flying in every direction since sunrise. Experts are unable to explain why the owls have suddenly changed their sleeping pattern." The newsreader allowed himself a grin. "Most mysterious. And now, over to Jim McGuffin with the weather. Going to be any more showers of owls tonight, Jim?"

"Well, Ted", said the weatherman, " I don't know about that, but it's not only the owls that have been acting oddly today. We were is as far apart as Kent, Yorkshire and Dundee have been phoning in to tell me that instead of the rain I promised yesterday, They've had a downpour of shooting stars! Perhaps people have been celebrating bonfire night early - it's not until next week, folks! But I can promise a wet night tonight."

Mr. Bell sat frozen in his armchair. Shooting stars all over Britain? Owls flying by daylight? Mysterious people in cloaks all over the place? And a whisper, a whisper about the (L/N)s...

Mrs. Bell came into the living room carrying two cups of tea. It was no good. He'd have to say something to her. He cleared his throat nervously. "Er- *Brenda, dear- you haven't heard from my sister lately, have you?"

As he had expected, Mrs. Bell looked shocked and angry. After all, they normally pretended he didn't have a sister.

"No", she said sharply "why?"

"Funny stuff on the news", Mr. Bell mumbled "owls...Shooting stars... and there were a lot of funny-looking people in town today..." 

"So?" Snapped Mrs. Bell.

"Well, I just thought...maybe...it has something to do with... you know...her lot."

Mrs.Bell sipped her tea through pursed lips. Mr. Bell wondered whether he dared tell her he'd heard the name " (L/N)". He decided he didn't dare. Instead, he said, as casually as he could, "their daughter - she'd be about Mary-lees age now, wouldn't she?"

"I suppose so," said Mrs. Bell stiffly.

"What's her name again? (W/N), isn't it?"

"(Y/N), a nasty, common name, if you ask me."

"Oh, yes," said Mr. Bell, his heart sinking horribly. "Yes, I quite agree."

He didn't say another word on the subject as they went upstairs to bed. While Mrs. Bell was in the bathroom, Mr. Bell crept to the bedroom window and peered down into the front garden in the Dursley's yard. The cat was still there. It was staring down privet drive a though it was waiting for something.

Was he imagining things? Could all this have to do with the (L/N)? If it did...if it got out that they were related to a pair of - well, he didn't think he could bear it. Is Mr. Dursley wondering the same thing about the potters?

The Bells got into bed. Mrs. Bell fell asleep quickly but Mr bell lay awake, turning it all over in his mind. His last comforting thought before he fell asleep was that even if the (L/N)s were involved, there was no reason for them to come near him and Mrs. Bell. The (L/N)s knee very well what he and Brenda thought about them and their kind...he couldn't see how he and Brenda could get mixed up in anything that might be going on. It couldn't affect them... 

How very wrong he was.

Mr. Bell might have been drifting into an uneasy sleep, but the cat on the wall outside was showing no sign of sleepiness. It was sitting still as a statue, its eyes fixed unblinkingly on the far corner of Privet Drive.it didn't so much as quiver when a car door slammed in the next street, nor when two owls swooped overhead. In fact, it was nearly midnight before the cat moved at all.

A man appeared on the corner the cat had been watching, appeared so suddenly and silently you'd have thought he'd just popped out of the ground. The cat's tail twitched and its eyes narrowed.

Nothing like this man had ever been seen on Privet Drive. He was tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright, and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice. This man's name was Albus Dumbledore. 

Albus Dumbledore didn't seem to realize that he had just arrived in a street where everything from his name to his boots was unwelcome. He was busy rummaging in his cloak, looking for something. But he did seem to realize he was being watched because he looked up suddenly at the cat, which was still staring at him from the other end of the street. For some reason, the sight of the cat seemed to amuse him. He chuckled and muttered, "I should have known." 

He found what he was looking for in his inside pocket. It seemed to be a silver cigarette lighter. He flicked it open, held it up in the air, and clicked it. The nearest street lamp went out with a little pop. He clicked it again -- the next lamp flickered into darkness. Twelve times he clicked the Put-Outer until the only lights left on the whole street were two tiny pinpricks in the distance, which were the eyes of the cat watching him. If anyone looked out the window now, even beady-eyed Mrs. Dursley or Bell, wouldn't be able the see anything that was happening down on the pavement. Dumbledore slipped the Put-Outer back inside his cloak and set off down the street toward number four, where he sat down on the wall next to the cat. He didn't look at it, but after a moment he spoke to it. 

"Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall."

  
He turned to smile at the tabby, but it had gone. Instead, he was smiling at a rather severe-looking woman who was wearing square glasses exactly the shape of the markings the cat had had around its eyes. She, too, was wearing a cloak, an emerald one. Her black hair was drawn into a tight bun. She looked distinctly ruffled. 

"How did you know it was me?" she asked. 

"My dear Professor, I 've never seen a cat sit so stiffly." 

"You'd be stiff if you'd been sitting on a brick wall all day," said Professor McGonagall. 

"All day? When you could have been celebrating? I must have passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here." 

Professor McGonagall sniffed angrily. 

"Oh yes, everyone's celebrating, all right," she said impatiently. "You'd think they'd be a bit more careful, but no -- even the Muggles have noticed something's going on. It was on their news." She jerked her head back at the Dursleys' dark living-room window. "I heard it. Flocks of owls... shooting stars... Well, they're not completely stupid. They were bound to notice something. Shooting stars down in Kent -- I'll bet that was Dedalus Diggle. He never had much sense." 

"You can't blame them," said Dumbledore gently. "We've had precious little to celebrate for eleven years." 

"I know that," said Professor McGonagall irritably. "But that's no reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes, swapping rumors." 

She threw a sharp, sideways glance at Dumbledore here, as though hoping he was going to tell her something, but he didn't, so she went on. "A fine thing it would be if, on the very day YouKnow-Who seems to have disappeared, at last, the Muggles found out about us all. I suppose he really has gone, Dumbledore?" 

"It certainly seems so," said Dumbledore. "We have much to be thankful for. Would you care for a lemon drop?" 

"A what?" 

"A lemon drop. They're a kind of Muggle sweet I'm rather fond of" 

"No, thank you," said Professor McGonagall coldly, as though she didn't think this was the moment for lemon drops. "As I say, even if You-Know-Who has gone -" 

"My dear Professor, surely a sensible person like yourself can call him by his name? All this 'You-Know-Who' nonsense -- for eleven years I have been trying to persuade people to call him by his proper name: Voldemort." Professor McGonagall flinched, but Dumbledore, who was unsticking two lemon drops, seemed not to notice. "It all gets so confusing if we keep saying 'You-Know-Who.' I have never seen any reason to be frightened of saying Voldemort's name. 

"I know you haven't, said Professor McGonagall, sounding half exasperated, half admiring. "But you're different. Everyone knows you're the only one You-Know- oh, all right, Voldemort, was frightened of." 

"You flatter me," said Dumbledore calmly. "Voldemort had powers I will never have." 

"Only because you're too -- well -- noble to use them."

"It's lucky it's dark. I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs." 

Professor McGonagall shot a sharp look at Dumbledore and said, "The owls are nothing next to the rumors that are flying around. Do you know what everyone's saying? About why he's disappeared? About what finally stopped him?" 

It seemed that Professor McGonagall had reached the point she was most anxious to discuss, the real reason she had been waiting on a cold, hard wall all day, for neither as a cat nor as a woman had she fixed Dumbledore with such a piercing stare as she did now. It was plain that whatever "everyone" was saying, she was not going to believe it until Dumbledore told her it was true. Dumbledore, however, was choosing another lemon drop and did not answer. 

"What they're saying," she pressed on, "is that last night Voldemort turned up in Godric's Hollow. He went to find the Potters and the (L/N). The rumor is that Lily, James Potter, (M/N), (F/N) (L/N) are - are - that they're - dead." 

Dumbledore bowed his head. Professor McGonagall gasped. 

"Lily and James... I can't believe it... (M/N) and (F/N)...I didn't want to believe it... Oh, Albus..." 

Dumbledore reached out and patted her on the shoulder. "I know... I know..." he said heavily. 

Professor McGonagall's voice trembled as she went on. "That's not all. They're saying he tried to kill the Potter's son and the (L/N)s daughter, Harry and (Y/N). But -- he couldn't. He couldn't kill those kids. No one knows why, or how, but they're saying that when he couldn't kill Harry Potter and (Y/N) (L/N), Voldemort's power somehow broke -- and that's why he's gone. 

Dumbledore nodded glumly. 

"It's -- it's true?" faltered Professor McGonagall. "After all, he's done... all the people he's killed... he couldn't kill a little boy? or a little girl? It's just astounding... of all the things to stop him... but how in the name of heaven did Harry and (Y/N) survive?" 

"We can only guess," said Dumbledore. "We may never know." 

Professor McGonagall pulled out a lace handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes beneath her spectacles. Dumbledore gave a great sniff as he took a golden watch from his pocket and examined it. It was a very odd watch. It had twelve hands but no numbers; instead, little planets were moving around the edge. It must have made sense to Dumbledore, though, because he put it back in his pocket and said, "Hagrid's late. I suppose it was he who told you I'd be here, by the way?" 

"Yes," said Professor McGonagall. "And I don't suppose you're going to tell me why you're here, of all places?" 

"I've come to bring Harry and (Y/N) to their aunts and uncles. They're the only family they have left now." 

"You don't mean -- you can't mean the people who live here and who lives next door?" cried Professor McGonagall, jumping to her feet and pointing at number four. "Dumbledore -- you can't. I've been watching them all day. You couldn't find four people who are less like us. And the one family has this son -- I saw him kicking his mother all the way up the street, and the other family has a daughter who was doing the same thing to her mother and they were both screaming for sweets. Harry Potter come and live here! And (Y/N) next door!"

"It's the best place for them," said Dumbledore firmly. "His aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to him when he's older, the same will go for the girl with her aunt and uncle. I've written both families a letter." 

"A letter?" repeated Professor McGonagall faintly, sitting back down on the wall. "Really, Dumbledore, you think you can explain all this in a letter? These people will never understand them! they will be famous -- a legend -- I wouldn't be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter and (Y/N) day in the future -- there will be books written about Harry and (Y/N) -- every child in our world will know their names!" 

"Exactly," said Dumbledore, looking very seriously over the top of his half-moon glasses. "It would be enough to turn any child's head. Famous before they both can walk and talk! Famous for something they won't even remember! Cant, you see how much better off they will be, growing up away from all that until they're ready to take it?" 

Professor McGonagall opened her mouth, changed her mind, swallowed, and then said, "Yes -- yes, you're right, of course. But how are the children getting here, Dumbledore?" She eyed his cloak suddenly as though she thought he might be hiding Harry and (Y/N) underneath it. 

"Hagrid's bringing them." 

"You think it -- wise -- to trust Hagrid with something as important as this?" 

"I would trust Hagrid with my life," said Dumbledore. 

"I'm not saying his heart isn't in the right place," said Professor McGonagall grudgingly, "but you can't pretend he's not careless. He does tend to -- what was that?" 

A low rumbling sound had broken the silence around them. It grew steadily louder as they looked up and down the street for some sign of a headlight; it swelled to a roar as they both looked up at the sky -- and a huge motorcycle fell out of the air and landed on the road in front of them. 

If the motorcycle was huge, it was nothing to the man sitting astride it. He was almost twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide. He looked simply too big to be allowed, and so wild - long tangles of bushy black hair and beard hid most of his face, he had hands the size of trash can lids, and his feet in their leather boots were like baby dolphins. In his vast, muscular arms he was holding a bundle of blankets. 

"Hagrid," said Dumbledore, sounding relieved. "At last. And where did you get that motorcycle?" 

"Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sit," said the giant, climbing carefully off the motorcycle as he spoke. "Young Sirius Black lent it to me. I've got them, sir." 

"No problems, were there?" 

"No, sir -- the house was almost destroyed, but I got them out all right before the Muggles started swarmin' around. They both fell asleep as we were flyin' over Bristol." 

Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall bent forward over the two bundles of blankets. Inside, just visible, was a baby boy and a baby girl, fast asleep. Under a tuft of jet-black hair over the boy's forehead, they could see a curiously shaped cut, like a bolt of lightning. Under a tuft of (H/C), they could see the same scar on the girl.

"Is that where -?" whispered Professor McGonagall. 

"Yes," said Dumbledore. "They will have those scars forever."

"Couldn't you do something about it, Dumbledore?" 

"Even if I could, I wouldn't. Scars can come in handy. I have one myself above my left knee that is a perfect map of the London Underground. Well -- give them here, Hagrid -- we'd better get this over with." 

Dumbledore took Harry in his arms and turned toward the Dursleys' house. While McGonagall took (Y/N) in her arms and turned towards the Bell house.

"Could I -- could I say good-bye to them, sir?" asked Hagrid. He bent his great, shaggy head over Harry and then over (Y/N) and gave them both what must have been a very scratchy, whiskery kiss. Then, suddenly, Hagrid let out a howl like a wounded dog. 

"Shhh!" hissed Professor McGonagall, "you'll wake the Muggles!" 

"S-s-sorry," sobbed Hagrid, taking out a large, spotted handkerchief and burying his face in it. "But I c-c-can't stand it -- Lily an' James dead -- an' poor little Harry off ter live with Muggles - (M/N) an' (F/N) dead as well - - an' poor (Y/N) getting sent off tee live with muggles as well-" 

"Yes, yes, it's all very sad, but get a grip on yourself, Hagrid, or we'll be found," Professor McGonagall whispered, patting Hagrid gingerly on the arm as Dumbledore stepped over the low garden wall and walked to the front door. He laid Harry gently on the doorstep, took a letter out of his cloak, tucked it inside Harry's blankets, McGonagall doing the same with (Y/N) and then both McGonagall and Dumbledore come back to hagrid. For a full minute, the three of them stood and looked at the two little bundles; Hagrid's shoulders shook, Professor McGonagall blinked furiously, and the twinkling light that usually shone from Dumbledore's eyes seemed to have gone out. 

"Well," said Dumbledore finally, "that's that. We've no business staying here. We may as well go and join the celebrations." 

"Yeah," said Hagrid in a very muffled voice, "I'll be takin' Sirius his bike back. G'night, Professor McGonagall -- Professor Dumbledore, sir." 

Wiping his streaming eyes on his jacket sleeve, Hagrid swung himself onto the motorcycle and kicked the engine into life; with a roar, it rose into the air and off into the night. 

"I shall see you soon, I expect, Professor McGonagall," said Dumbledore, nodding to her. Professor McGonagall blew her nose in reply. 

Dumbledore turned and walked back down the street. On the corner, he stopped and took out the silver Put-Outer. He clicked it once, and twelve balls of light sped back to their street lamps so that Privet Drive glowed suddenly orange and he could make out a tabby cat slinking around the corner at the other end of the street. He could just see the bundle of blankets on the step of number four and number five.  
"Good luck, Harry and (Y/N)," he murmured. He turned on his heel and with a swish of his cloak, he was gone. 

A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter and (Y/N) rolled over inside their blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside each child and they slept on, not knowing they were special, not knowing they were famous, not knowing they would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. Dursley's and Mrs. bells scream as they open their front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that they would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by their cousins Dudley and Mary-lee... They couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: "To Harry Potter and (Y/N)-- the boy and girl who lived!"


	2. ~Year One~  ||Chapter Two|| The Vanishing Glass

Key:  
(Y/N) - your name  
(L/N) -last name   
(W/N)- wrong name  
(F/N)-fathers name  
M/N-mothers name  
Y/F/I- your first initial   
Please let me know if I've forgotten to put anything in the key

Nearly ten years have passed since the Bells had woken up to find their niece on the front step, but Privet Drive and hardly changed at all. The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the brass number five on the Bells front door; it crept into their living room, which was almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mr. Bell Have you seen the fateful news report about the owls. Only the photographs on the mantle piece really showed how much time had passed. 10 years ago there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different coloured sun hats - Mary-lee Bell was no longer a baby, and now photographs or a large, (C/H/C) girl riding her first bicycle,On a roundabout at the fair, playing a computer game with her father, being hugged and kissed by her mother. The room held no sign at all that another girl lived in the house, too. Yet (Y/N) (L/N) was still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. Her aunt Brenda was awake and it was her shrill voice which made the first noise of the day.

"Up! Get up! Now!"

(Y/N) woke with a start. Her aunt wrapped on the door again. "Up!" She screeched. (Y/N) heard her walking towards the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the cooker. She rolled on her back I'm trying to remember the dream she had been having. It has been a good one. There had been a flying motorbike in it. She had a funny feeling she'd had the same dream before.

Her aunt was back outside the door.

"Are you up yet?" She demanded.

" well, get a move on, I want you to look after the bacon and don't you dare let it burn, I want everything perfect on Mary's birthday."

Y/N groaned.

"What did you say?" Her aunt Snapped through the door.

"Nothing, nothing..."

Mary's birthday - how could she have forgotten? (Y/N) got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. She found a pair under her bed and, after pulling a spider off one of them, put them on. (Y/N) was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs it was full of them, And that was where she slept.

When she was dressed she went down the hall into the kitchen. The tables are almost hidden beneath all Mary's birthday presents. It looked as though Mary had got the new computer she wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike. Exactly why Mary wanted a racing bike was a mystery to (Y/N), As Mary was very fat and hated exercise – unless of course it was involved punching somebody. Mary's favourite punch bag was Y/N, but he couldn't often catch her Y/N didn't look it, but she was very fast.

Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but (Y/N) had always been small and skinny for her age. She look even smaller and skinnier than she really was because all she had to wear wear old clothes of Mary's and Mary was about four times bigger than she was.(Y/N) had a thin face, Knobbly knees, H/C hair and H/C eyes. She wore a Band-Aid across her nose because of all the times Mary had punched her on the nose. The only thing Y/N liked about her own appearance Was a very thin scar on her for head which was shaped like a bolt of lightning. She had it as long as she could remember in the first question that she could ever remember asking her aunt Brenda was how she got it.

"In a car crash when yours and Harry's parents dies,"she had said "and don't ask questions"

Don't ask questions - that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Bells.

Uncle Richard entered the kitchen as (Y/N) was turning over the bacon.

"Brush your hair!" He barked, by way of a morning greeting. About once a week, Uncle Richard looked over the top of his newspapers and shouted that (Y/N) needed a haircut and according to Harry,who (Y/N) would hang out with every once and awhile,says that his uncle does the same thing. (Y/N) and Harry must have had more haircuts than the rest of the kids in their class put together, but it made no difference, their hair simply grew that way - all over the place.

(Y/N) was Frying eggs by the time Mary arrived in the kitchen with her mother. We looked a lot like Aunt Brenda. She had a medium sized, pink face, more neck then needed, small watery (E/C) eyes and, thick (H/C) hair that lay smoothly on her medium-sized head. Brenda often said that Mary looked like a baby angel Dash Harry often said that Mary look like a pig in a wig.

Y/N put the plates of egg and bacon on the table, which was difficult as there wasn't much room. Mary, meanwhile, was counting her presents. Her face fell.

"Thirty-six," He said, looking up at her father and mother "that's two less then last year"

"Darling, you haven't counted auntie Lucinda's present, see, it's here under the big one from mommy and daddy."  
"All right, thirty-seven then," said Dudley, going red in the face, Y/N who could see a huge Mary tantrum coming on, begin wolfing down her bacon as fast as possible in case Mary turn the table over.

AuntBrenda obviously scented danger too, because she said quickly, "and will buy you another two presents while we're out with the Dursley's today. How's that, pumpkin? Two more presents. Is that all right?"

Mary thought for a moment. It looks like hard work. Finally she said slowly, "so I'll have thirty...thirty..."

"Thirty-nine, sweetie,"quotes said Aunt Brenda.

"Oh." Mary sat down heavily and grab the nearest parcel. "All right then."

Uncle Richard chuckled.

"Little tyke wants her moneys worth,just like her father. Atta girl Mary!" He ruffled Mary's hair.

At the moment the telephone rang and aunt Brenda went to answer it wall Y/N and uncle Richard watched Mary and wrap the racing bike, a vine camera, a remote control airplane, sixteen new computer games in a video recorder. She was ripping the paper off a gold bracelet when aunt Brenda came back, looking both angry and worried.

"Bad news,Richard" she said." The Dursley say that Mrs. fig's broken her leg. Which means she can't take Y/N and Harry" She jerked her head in Y/N's direction.

Mary's mouth all open in horror but Y/N heart gave a leap.Every year on Mary's birthday her parents took her and a friend out for the day, to adventure Parks, hamburger bars or the cinema. Every year, Y/N was left behind with Miss fig and Harry , a mad old lady who lived two streets away and Harry was the Dursley's nephew . Y/N and Harry and hated going there. The whole house smelled of cabbage in Miss fig made them look at photographs of all the cats she'd ever owned.

"Now what?" Said aunt Brenda, looking furiously at Y/N as though she planned this. Y/N and knew she ought to feel sorry that Mrs Figg had broken her leg, but it wasn't easy when she reminded herself it would be a whole year before she had to look at Tibbles, Snowy, Mr. Paws and Tufty again.

"We could have the Dursley's phone marge," Uncle Richard suggested.

" don't be silly, Richard, she hates the kids."

Both the Dursley's and the bells spoke about Harry and Y/N like this, as though they weren't there – or rather, as though they were something very nasty that couldn't understand them like a slug.

"What about what's your name yours and petunias friend – Yvonne ?"  
"On holiday in Majorca," snapped aunt Brenda. 

"You in the Dursleys could just leave me in harry here,"Y/N put in hopefully (she and Harry would be able to watch what they wanted on the television for a change and maybe even have a go on Mary's or Dudley's computer).

And Brenda looked as though she just swallowed a lemon.

"And come back and find the houses in ruins?" She snarled.

"We won't blow up the houses," said Y/N, but they weren't listening.

"I suppose we could tell the Dursleys we could take them to the zoo," said aunt Brenda slowly, "... and leave the girl and the boy in the car..."

"The car is new, we're not leaving the children sitting in it alone..."

Mary began to cry loudly. In fact, she wasn't really crying, it had been years since she really cried, but she knew that if she screwed up her face and wailed,Her mother would give her anything she wanted.

"Princess, don't cry, mommy won't let them spoil yours and Dudleys special day!" She cried, flinging her arms around her.

"I...don't...want...them...t-t-to come!" Mary yelled between huge pretended sobs. "They always sp-spoil everything!" She shot Y/N a nasty grin through the gap in her mothers arms.

Just then, the doorbell rang -"Oh, good Lord, they're here!" Said aunt Brenda frantically-And a moment later petunia Dursley,Vernon Dursley, Dudley,Dudleys best friend,Piers polkiss, and Mary's best friend Becky. Piers Was a scrawny boy with a face like a rat and Becky was a tall lanky girl that had a face like a horse.piers Was usually the one who held peoples army hind their back's well Dudley hit them the same went for Becky Mary's friend.Mary stop pretending to cry at once.

Half an hour later, hairy and Y/N, who can believe their luck, was sitting in the very back of the Dursley's car with peers, Dudley, Mari, and Becky, on the way to the zoo for the first time in their life.Y/N' S and Harry's aunt and uncle hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with them, but before they left, uncle Vernon and uncle Richard had taken Harry and Y/N aside.

"I am warning you," they had said, putting their faces right up close to Harry's and Y/N' S "I am warning you now, kids-any funny business,Anything at all-and you'll be in your cupboards from now until Christmas."

"We're not going to do anything," said hairy, "honestly..." Y/N finished

But neither Vernon or Richard believe them. No one ever did.

The problem was, Strange things often happened around Harry and Y/N it was just no good telling the Dursleys or the Bells they didn't make them happen.

Once, their aunts, tired of coming back from the barbers looking as though they haven't been at all,Had taken pairs of kitchen scissors and cut their hair so short they were almost bald except for the fringe, which their aunts left "to hide that horrible scar".Both her cousins had laughed themselves silly and hairy and why/in, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day were they were already laughed at for their baggy clothes,Harry's cello taped glasses, and Y/N's bandaged nose. The next morning, however, they had got up to find their hair exactly as it had been before their aunts had shears it off, although it was a bit more noticeable on Y/N since she had longer hair. They had both been given a week in the cupboards for this, even though they had tried to explain that they couldn't explain how their hair had grown back so quickly.

Another time, there are ants have been trying to force them into revolting old clothes of Dudley's in Mary's (for harry it was a brown with orange bobbled jumper and for Y/N it was a green and brown skirt and matching shirt). The harder there and tried to pull the articles of clothing over their heads, the smaller the clothing seemed to become, until finally the clothing might have fit on a glove puppet, but certainly wouldn't fit Harry or Y/N. Their aunts had decided that the clothing must have shrunk in the wash and, to Harry and Y/N's great relief, they weren't punished.

On the other hand, they had got into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens.Dudley and Mary's gang Had been chasing them as usual when as much to Harry and Y/N' S surprised as anyone else's, they were they were sitting on the chimney. The Dursley's and the Bells had received very angry letters from Harry's and Y/N's mistress telling them how Harry and Y/N had been climbing the school buildings.but all they had tried to do (As they shouted at their uncles through the locked door of their cupboards)was jump behind the big bins outside the kitchen doors.Harry in Y/N suppose that the wind must've caught them in mid jump.

But today, nothing was going to go wrong. It was even worth being with Dudley, Piers, Mary and Becky to be spending the day somewhere that wasn't school, their cupboards or Mrs fights cabbage-smelling living-room.

while he drove, uncle Vernon complained to aunt Petunia aswell as Y/N's aunt and uncle. Do you like to complain about things: people at work, Harry, the council, Y/N, Harry, the bank, Harry and why/in being friends, and Harry were just a few of his favourite subjects,is what Harry tells Y/N.This morning, it was motorbikes.

"...Roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums," he said, as a motorbike over took them.

"We had a dream about a motorbike," said Harry and Y/N together, remembering suddenly. "It was flying,"Y/N finished 

Uncle Vernon nearly crashed into the car in front he and Mr. Bell turned right around in their seat and yelled at Harry and Y/N, their faced like giant beetroots with mustaches, "MOTORBIKES DON'T FLY!"

Y/N's and Harry's,cousins as-well as their friends sniggered.

"We know they don't," Y/N and Harry say together. "It was only a dream." Harry finished. 

But they had wished they haven't said anything. If there's one thing the Dursley's in the Bells hated even more than their asking questions, it was there talking about anything acting in a way it shouldn't, no matter if it was in a dream or even a cartoon – the Dursley's and the Bells seem to think they might get dangerous ideas.

Was very sunny Saturday in the zoo was crowded with families. The jerseys but deadly and peers large chocolate ice cream's at the entrance and the Bells did the same for Mary and Becky,and then, because the smiling lady in the van had asked Harry and Y/N what they wanted before they could hurry them away, they bought them cheap lemon ice lollies. They weren't bad either, Harry and Y/N thought, licking them as they watched a gorilla scratching his head and looking remarkably like Dudley and Mary, except that it wasn't blonde or H/C.

Harry and Y/N had the best morning they'd had in a long time. They were careful to walk a little way apart from the Dursleys and the Bells so that Dudley, Piers,Mary, and Becky who were starting to get bored with the animals by lunchtime, wouldn't fall back on their favorite hobby of hitting them. They ate in the zoo restaurant, and when Dudley and Mary had a tantrum because thier knickerbocker glory's didn't have enough ice cream on top, Uncle Vernon and uncle Richard bought them another one and Harry and Y\N were allowed to finish the first two.

Harry and Y/N felt, afterward, that they should have known it was all too good to last.

After lunch they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Dudley, Piers, Mary, and Becky wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons. Dudley and Mary quickly found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon's car and crushed it into a trash can -- but at the moment it didn't look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep.   
  
Dudley and Mary stood with their noses pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils. 

"Make it move," Dudley's and Mary whined at Dudley's father. Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn't budge. 

"Do it again," Mary ordered. Uncle Vernon rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on. 

"This is boring," Dudley moaned. He shuffled away. 

Harry and Y/N moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. They wouldn't have been surprised if it had died of boredom itself -- no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long. It was worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom, where the only visitor was Aunt Petunia or aunt Brenda hammering on the door to wake you up; at least they got to visit the rest of the house.   
  
The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Harry's and Y/N's

It winked. 

Harry and Y/N stared. Then they looked quickly at each other then looked around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't. He and Y/N looked back at the snake and winked, too. 

The snake jerked its head toward Uncle Vernon, Dudley, and Mary then raised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave Harry and Y/N a look that said quite plainly:   
"I get that all the time."

"I know," Harry murmured through the glass, though he wasn't sure the snake could hear him. "It must be really annoying." 

The snake nodded vigorously. 

"Where do you come from, anyway?" Y/N asked. 

The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Harry peered at it. 

Boa Constrictor, Brazil.   
"Was it nice there?" 

The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Y/N read on: This specimen was bred in the zoo. "Oh, I see -- so you've never been to Brazil?" 

As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Harry made all three of them jump. "DUDLEY! MARY! MR. DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"

Dudley and Mary came waddling toward them as fast as they could. 

"Out of the way, you," mary and Dudley said, punching Harry and Y/N in the ribs. Caught by surprise, Harry and Y/N fell hard on the concrete floor. What came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened -- one second, Piers and Dudley and Mary and Becky were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had leapt back with howls of horror. 

Harry and Y/N sat up and gasped; the glass front of the boa constrictor's tank had vanished. The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor. People throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits. 

As the snake slid swiftly past them, Harry and Y/N could have sworn a low, hissing voice said, "Brazil, here I come.... Thanksss, amigos ." 

The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.   
"But the glass," he kept saying, "where did the glass go?"   
The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia and aunt Brenda a cup of strong, sweet tea while he apologized over and over again. Piers and Dudley as-well as Mary and Becky could only gibber. As far as Y/N and Harry had seen, the snake hadn't done anything except snap playfully at their heels as it passed, but by the time they were all back in Uncle Vernon's car, Dudley and Mary were telling them how it had nearly bitten off their legs, while Piers and Becky were swearing it had tried to squeeze them to death. But worst of all, for Harry and Y/N at least, was Piers calming down enough to say, "Harry was talking to it, weren't you, Harry?" Becky chimed in and said "yea, and Y/N was talking to it too"

Uncle Richard waited until Becky was safely out of the the house and the Dursley's has gone home before starting on Y/N. He was so angry he could hardly speak. He managed to say, "Go -- cupboard -- stay -- no meals," before he collapsed into a chair, and Aunt Brenda had to run and get him a large brandy. 

Y/N lay in her dark cupboard much later, wishing she had a watch. She didn't know what time it was and she couldn't be sure the Bells were asleep yet. Until they were, she couldn't risk sneaking to the kitchen for some food.

She'd lived with the bells almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as she could remember, ever since she'd been a baby and parents had died in that car crash with Harry's parents . She couldn't remember being in the car when her parents or Harry's parents had died. Sometimes, when she strained her memory during long hours in her cupboard, she came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burn- ing pain on her forehead. This, she supposed, was the crash, though she couldn't imagine where all the green light came from. She couldn't remember her parents at all. Her aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course she was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house. 

When she had been younger, Y/N had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take her away, but it had never happened; the Bells were her only family. Yet sometimes she thought (or maybe hoped) that strangers in the street seemed to know her. Very strange strangers they were, too. A tiny man in a violet top hat had bowed to her once while out shopping with Aunt Brenda and Mary . After asking Y/N furiously if she knew the man, Aunt Brenda had rushed them out of the shop without buying anything. A wild-looking old woman dressed all in green had waved merrily at her once on a bus. A bald man in a very long purple coat had actually shaken her hand in the street the other day and then walked away without a word. The weirdest thing about all these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second Y/N tried to get a closer look.   
At school, Y/N only had Harry. Everybody knew that Dudley's and Mary's gang hated that odd Harry Potter and Y/N L/N in their baggy old clothes and broken glasses or in Y/N's case a bandage across her nose, and nobody liked to disagree with Dudley's or Mary's gang. 

Well that's the end of the second chapter,I hope you're enjoying the book so far!


	3. ~Year One~  ||Chapter Three|| Letters From No One

Key:  
(Y/N) - your name  
(L/N) -last name   
(W/N)- wrong name  
(F/N)-fathers name  
M/N-mothers name  
Y/F/I- your first initial   
Please let me know if I've forgotten to put anything in the key

The escape of the Brazilian boa constrictor earned Y/N her longest-ever punishment. By the time she was allowed out of her cupboard again, the summer holidays had started and Mary had already broken her new video camera, crashed her remote control airplane, and, first time out on her racing bike, knocked down old Mrs. Figg as she crossed Privet Drive on her crutches.   
Y/N was glad school was over, but there was no escaping Mary's gang, who visited the house every single day. Becky, Jen, Layla, and Grace were all big and stupid, but as Mary was the biggest and stupidest of the lot, she was the leader. The rest of them were all quite happy to join in Mary's part favorite sport: Y/N Hunting. 

Harry seems to have to endure the same thing with Dudley.

This was why Harry and Y/N spent as much time as possible out of the house, wandering around and thinking about the end of the holidays, where they could see a tiny ray of hope. When September came they would be going off to secondary school and, for the first time in their life, they wouldn't be with Dudley and Mary.Dudley had been accepted at Uncle Vernon's old private school, Smeltings.Mary had also been accepted into an all girls school mrs Bell went to.Piers Polkiss was going there too. Becky was going with Mary to the all girls school.Harry and Y/N, on the other hand, were going to Stonewall High, the local public school. Dudley and Mary thought this was very funny. 

"They stuff people's heads down the toilet the first day at Stonewall," he told Harry and Y/N

"Want to come upstairs and practice?" Mary chimed in 

"No, thanks," said Harry. "The poor toilet's never had anything as horrible as your heads down it -- it might be sick." Y/N finished Then Harry and Y/N ran, before Dudley and Mary could work out what she'd said.

One day in July, Aunt Brenda took Mary to London to buy her Persephone's :all girls school uniform,leaving Y/N at Mrs. Figg's with Harry. Mrs. Figg wasn 't as bad as usual. It turned out she'd broken her leg tripping over one of her cats, and she didn't seem quite as fond of them as before. She let Harry and Y/N watch television and gave them a bit of chocolate cake that tasted as though she'd had it for several years. 

That evening, Mary paraded around the living room for the family in her brand-new uniform.the girls wore white blouses, a light blue and white striped bow around the neck,a light blue skirt, and a fancy little red had they call a beret . They also carried fancy little fans, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren't looking. This was supposed to be good training for later life.

As she looked at Mary in her new skirt, Uncle Richard said gruffly that it was the proudest moment of his life. Aunt Brenda burst into tears and said she couldn't believe it was her sweet princess , she looked so beautiful and grown-up. Y/N didn't trust herself to speak. She thought two of her ribs might already have cracked from trying not to laugh. There was a horrible smell in the kitchen the next morning when Y/N went in for breakfast. It seemed to be coming from a large metal tub in the sink. She went to have a look. The tub was full of what looked like dirty rags swimming in gray water. 

"What's this?" She asked Aunt Brenda . Her lips tightened as they always did if she dared to ask a question. 

"Your new school uniform," she said. 

Y/N looked in the bowl again. 

"Oh," she said, "I didn't realize it had to be so wet."   
"Dont be stupid," snapped Aunt Brenda. "I'm dyeing some of Marys old things gray for you. It'll look just like everyone else's when I've finished."   
Y/n seriously doubted this, but thought it best not to argue. She sat down at the table and tried not to think about how she was going to look on her first day at Stonewall High -- like she was wearing bits of old elephant skin, probably.

Mary and Uncle Richard came in, both with wrinkled noses because of the smell from Y/N's new uniform. Uncle Richard opened his newspaper as usual and Mary slaps her fan, which she carried everywhere, on the table. 

They heard the click of the mail slot and flop of letters on the doormat. 

"Get the mail, Mary," said Uncle Richard from behind his paper. 

"Make Y/N get it." 

"Get the mail, Y/N." 

"Make Marry get it." 

"Slap her with your Fan, Mary." 

Y/N dodged the fan and went to get the mail. Three things lay on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Richards friend,who is also Mr Dursley's sister, Marge, who was vacationing on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that looked like a bill, and -- a letter for Y/N. 

Y/N picked it up and stared at it, her heart twanging like a giant elastic band. No one, ever, in her whole life, had written to her. Who would? She had no friends other than Harry, no other relatives -- she didn't belong to the library, so she'd never even got rude notes asking for books back. Yet here it was, a letter, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake: 

Miss . Y/F/I. L/N   
The Cupboard under the Stairs   
5 Privet Drive   
Little Whinging   
Surrey 

The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp. 

Turning the envelope over, her hand trembling, Y/N saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding a letter "H". 

"Hurry up, girl!" shouted Uncle Richard from the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?" He chuckled at his own joke.   
  
Y/N went back to the kitchen, still staring at her letter. She handed Uncle Vernon the bill and the postcard, sat down, and slowly began to open the yellow envelope.

Uncle Richard ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust, and flipped over the postcard.

"Marge's ill," he informed Aunt Brenda. "Ate a funny whelk. --."

"Dad!" said Mary suddenly. "Dad, Y/n's got something!" 

Y/N was on the point of unfolding her letter, which was written on the same heavy parchment as the envelope, when it was jerked sharply out of his hand by Uncle Richard.

"That's mine!" said Y/N, trying to snatch it back. 

"Who'd be writing to you?" sneered Uncle Richard , shaking the letter open with one hand and glancing at it. His face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn't stop there. Within seconds it was the grayish white of old porridge.

"B-B-Brenda !" he gasped. 

Mary tried to grab the letter to read it, but Uncle Richard held it high out of her reach. Aunt Brenda took it curiously and read the first line. For a moment it looked as though she might faint. She clutched her throat and made a choking noise. 

"Richard ! Oh my goodness -- Richard !" 

They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Y/N and Mary were still in the room. Mary wasn't used to being ignored. She gave her father a sharp slap on the head with her fan.

"I want to read that letter," she said loudly. 

"I want to read it," said Y/N furiously, "as it's mine."

"Get out, both of you," croaked Uncle Richard , stuffing the letter back inside its envelope. 

Y/N didn't move.

"I WANT MY LETTER!" She shouted.

"Let me see it!" demanded Mary.

"OUT!" roared Uncle Richard , and he took both Y/N and Mary by the scruffs of their necks and threw them into the hall, slamming the kitchen door behind them. Y/N and Mary promptly had a furious but silent fight over who would listen at the keyhole; Mary won, so Y/N , her hair dangling in-front of her face, lay flat on her stomach to listen at the crack between door and floor.

"Richard ," Aunt Brenda was saying in a quivering voice, "look at the address -- how could they possibly know where she sleeps? You don't think they're watching the house?" 

"Watching -- spying -- might be following us and possibly the Dursley's as-well," muttered Uncle Richard wildly. 

"But what should we do, Richard ? Should we write back? Tell them we don't want --"

Y/N could see Uncle Richard's shiny black shoes pacing up and down the kitchen.

"No," he said finally. "No, we'll ignore it. If they don't get an answer... Yes, that's best... we won't do anything...."

"But --" 

"I'm not having one in the house, Brenda ! Didn't we swear when we took her in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense?"

That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Richard did something he'd never done before; he visited Y/N in her cupboard.

"Where's my letter?" said Y/N, the moment Uncle Richard had squeezed through the door. "Who's writing to me?"

"No one. it was addressed to you by mistake," said Uncle Richard shortly. "I have burned it."

"It was not a mistake," said Y/Nangrily, "it had my cupboard on it."

"SILENCE!" yelled Uncle Richard, and a couple of spiders fell from the ceiling. He took a few deep breaths and then forced his face into a smile, which looked quite painful. "Er -- yes, Y/N -- about this cupboard. Your aunt and I have been thinking... you're really getting a bit big for it... we think it might be nice if you moved into Marys second bedroom. 

"Why?" said Y/N. 

"Don't ask questions!" snapped her uncle. "Take this stuff upstairs, now."

The Bell's house had four bedrooms: one for Uncle Richard and Aunt Brenda , one for visitors (usually mr bell's friend , Stacy ), one where Mary slept, and one where Mary kept all the toys and things that wouldn't fit into her first bedroom. It only took Y/N one trip upstairs to move everything she owned from the cupboard to this room. She sat down on the bed and stared around her. Nearly everything in here was broken. The month-old video camera was lying on top of a small, working tank Mary had once driven over the next door neighbor's cat ; in the corner was Mary's first-ever television set, which she'd put her foot through when her favorite program had been canceled; there was a large birdcage, which had once held a parrot that Mary had swapped at school for a real air rifle, which was up on a shelf with the end all bent because Mary had sat on it. Other shelves were full of books. They were the only things in the room that looked as though they'd never been touched. 

From downstairs came the sound of Mary bawling at her mother, "I don't want her in there... I need that room... make her get out...." 

Y/N sighed and stretched out on the bed. Yesterday she'd have given anything to be up here. Today she'd rather be back in her cupboard with that letter than up here without it.   
Next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Mary was in shock. She'd screamed, slapped her father with her Fan, been sick on purpose, kicked her mother, and thrown her tortoise through the greenhouse roof, and she still didn't have her room back. Y/N was thinking about this time yesterday and bitterly wishing she'd opened the letter in the hall. Uncle Richard and Aunt Mary kept looking at each other darkly. When the mail arrived, Uncle Richard , who seemed to be trying to be nice to Y/N, made Mary go and get it. They heard her slapping things with her fan all the way down the hall. Then she shouted, "There's another one! 'Mrs. Y/F/I. L/N, The Smallest Bedroom, 5 Privet Drive --'"

With a strangled cry, Uncle Richard leapt from his seat and ran down the hall, Y/N  
right behind him . Uncle Richard had to wrestle Mary to the ground to get the letter from her, which was made difficult by the fact that Y/N had grabbed Uncle Vernon around the neck from behind. After a minute of confused fighting, in which everyone got hit a lot by the fan Uncle Richard straightened up, gasping for breath, with Y/N's letter clutched in his hand.

"Go to your cupboard -- I mean, your bedroom," he wheezed at Y/N. "Mary -- go -- just go." 

Y/N walked round and round her new room. Someone knew she had moved out of her cupboard and they seemed to know she hadn't received her first letter. Had Harry gotten a letter like this? Surely that meant they'd try again? And this time she'd make sure they didn't fail. She had a plan.

The repaired alarm clock rang at six o'clock the next morning. Y/N turned it off quickly and dressed silently. She mustn't wake the Bells. She stole downstairs without turning on any of the lights.

She was going to wait for the postman on the corner of Privet Drive and get the letters for number five first. Her heart hammered as she crept across the dark hall toward the front door -- 

Y/N leapt into the air; she'd trodden on something tall and bony on the doormat -- something alive! 

Lights clicked on upstairs and to her horror Y/N realized that the tall, bony something had been his uncle's face. Uncle Richard had been lying at the foot of the front door in a sleeping bag, clearly making sure that Y/N didn't do exactly what she'd been trying to do. He shouted at Y/N for about half an hour and then told her to go and make a cup of tea. Y/N shuffled miserably off into the kitchen and by the time she got back, the mail had arrived, right into Uncle Richards lap. Y/N could see three letters addressed in green ink.

I want --" she began, but Uncle Richard was tearing the letters into pieces before her eyes. Uncle Richard didn't go to work that day. He stayed at home and nailed up the mail slot.

"See," he explained to Aunt Brenda through a mouthful of nails, "if they can't deliver them they'll just give up."

"I'm not sure that'll work, Vernon."

"Oh, these people's minds work in strange ways, Brenda , they're not like you and me," said Uncle Richard , trying to knock in a nail with the piece of fruitcake Aunt Brenda had just brought him.

On Friday, no less than twelve letters arrived for Y/N. As they couldn't go through the mail slot they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides, and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom.

Uncle Richard stayed at home again. After burning all the letters, he got out a hammer and nails and boarded up the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could go out. He hummed "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" as he worked, and jumped at small noises.

On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Twenty-four letters to Y/N found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Brenda through the living room window. While Uncle Richard made furious telephone calls to the post office and the dairy trying to find someone to complain to other than Mr Dursley, who seemed to be having the same problems with Harry , Aunt Brenda shredded the letters in her food processor.

"Who on earth wants to talk to you this badly?" Mary asked Y/N in amazement.

On Sunday morning, Uncle Richard sat down at the breakfast table looking tired and rather ill, but happy.

"No post on Sundays," he reminded them cheerfully as he spread marmalade on his newspapers, "no damn letters today --"

Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and caught him sharply on the back of the head. Next moment, thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Bells ducked, but Y/N leapt into the air trying to catch one.

"Out! OUT!"

Uncle Richard seized Y/N around the waist and threw her into the hall. When Aunt Brenda and Mary had run out with their arms over their faces, Uncle Richard slammed the door shut. They could hear the letters still streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor.

"That does it," said Uncle Richard , trying to speak calmly but pulling great tufts out of his mustache at the same time. "I want you all back here in five minutes ready to leave. We're going away.were going to be going with the Dursley's. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!"

He looked so dangerous with half his mustache missing that no one dared argue. Ten minutes later they had wrenched their way through the boarded-up doors and were in the car with the Dursley's , speeding toward the highway. Dudley and Mary were sniffling in the back seat; their father's had hit them round the head for holding them up while they tried to pack their televisions, VCR's, and computers in their bags.

They drove. And they drove. Even Aunt Petunia and aunt Brenda didn't dare ask where they were going. Every now and then Mr Dursley would take a sharp turn and drive in the opposite direction for a while. 

"Shake'em off... shake 'em off," he would mutter whenever he did this.

They didn't stop to eat or drink all day. By nightfall Dudley and Mary were howling. They'd never had such a bad day in their life. They were hungry, they'd missed five television programs they'd wanted to see, and they'd never gone so long without blowing up an alien on their computers.

Uncle Vernon stopped at last outside a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city. Dudley,Harry, Mary, and Y/N shared a room with queen sized beds and damp, musty sheets. Dudley and Mary snored but Harry and Y/N stayed awake, sitting on the windowsill, staring down at the lights of passing cars together and wondering....

They ate stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast the next day. They had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to their table.

"'Scuse me, but is one of you Mr. H. Potter? And is another one of you Mrs. Y/F/I. L/N?Only I got about an 'undred of these at the front desk."

She held up two letters so they could read the green ink address:   
Mr. H. Potter   
Room 17   
Railview Hotel   
Cokeworth 

And

Miss. Y/F/I. L/N  
Room 17   
Railview Hotel   
Cokeworth 

Harry and Y/N made a grab for their letters but Uncle Vernon and Uncle Richard knocked their hands out of the way. The woman stared.

"I'll take them," said Uncle Vernon and uncle Richard together.standing up quickly and following her from the dining room.

"Wouldn't it be better just to go home, dear?" Aunt Petunia and Brenda suggested timidly, hours later, but neither Uncle Vernon nor uncle Richard seemed to hear them. Exactly what they were looking for, none of them knew. Mr Dursley drove them into the middle of a forest, got out, looked around, shook his head, got back in the car, and off they went again. The same thing happened in the middle of a plowed field, halfway across a suspension bridge, and at the top of a multilevel parking garage.

"Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?" Dudley and Mary asked Aunt petunia and Brenda dully late that afternoon. Uncle Vernon had parked at the coast, locked them all inside the car, and disappeared with uncle Richard following close behind.

It started to rain. Great drops beat on the roof of the car. Dudley and Mary snivelled. 

"It's Monday," they told their mothers . "The Great Humberto's on tonight. We want to stay somewhere with a television. "

Monday. This reminded Harry and Y/N of something. If it was Monday -- and you could usually count on Dudley and Mary to know the days the week, because of television -- then tomorrow, Tuesday, was Harry's and Y/N's eleventh birthday. Of course, their birthdays were never exactly fun -- last year, the Dursleys had given him a coat hanger and a pair of Uncle Vernon's old socks and last year y/n got a paper clip and an old fedora Mary used to wear.Still, you weren't eleven every day. 

Uncle Vernon and Richard were back and they were smiling. Mr Dursley was also carrying a long, thin package and didn't answer Aunt Petunia when she asked what he'd bought.

"Found the perfect place!" he said. "Come on! Everyone out!"

It was very cold outside the car. Uncle Vernon was pointing at what looked like a large rock way out at sea. Perched on top of the rock was the most miserable little shack you could imagine. One thing was certain, there was no television in there.

"Storm forecast for tonight!" said Uncle Vernon gleefully, clapping his hands together,uncle Richard beaming beside him. "And this gentleman's kindly agreed to lend us his boat!"

A toothless old man came ambling up to them, pointing, with a rather wicked grin, at an old rowboat bobbing in the iron-gray water below them.

"I've already got us some rations," said Uncle Vernon, "so all aboard!"

It was freezing in the boat. Icy sea spray and rain crept down their necks and a chilly wind whipped their faces. After what seemed like hours they reached the rock, where Uncle Vernon and Richard , slipping and sliding, led the way to the broken-down house.

The inside was horrible; it smelled strongly of seaweed, the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls, and the fireplace was damp and empty. There were only two rooms.

Uncle Vernon's rations turned out to be a bag of chips each and eight bananas. He tried to start a fire but the empty chip bags just smoked and shriveled up.

"Could do with some of those letters now, eh?" he said cheerfully, uncle Richard nodding his head in agreement 

They were in a very good mood. Obviously they thought nobody stood a chance of reaching them here in a storm to deliver mail. Harry and Y/N privately agreed, though the thought didn't cheer them up at all. 

As night fell, the promised storm blew up around them. Spray from the high waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the filthy windows. Aunt Petunia and Brenda found a few moldy blankets in the second room and made up a bed for Dudley and Mary on the two moth-eaten sofa. She and Uncle Vernon went off to the lumpy bed next door, and Harry and Y/N was left to find the softest bit of floor they could and to curl up under the thinnest, most ragged blankets.

The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Harry and Y/N couldn't sleep. They shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, their stomach's rumbling with hunger. Dudley and Mary's snores were drowned by the low rolls of thunder that started near midnight. The lighted dial of Dudley's watch, which was dangling over the edge of the sofa on his fat wrist, told Harry and Y/N they'd be eleven in ten minutes' time. They lay and watched their birthday tick nearer, wondering if the Dursleys and the Bells would remember at all, wondering where the letter writer was now.

Five minutes to go. Harry and Y/N heard something creak outside. They hoped the roof wasn't going to fall in, although they might be warmer if it did. Four minutes to go. Maybe the houses in Privet Drive would be so full of letters when they got back that they'd be able to steal one somehow.

Three minutes to go. Was that the sea, slapping hard on the rock like that? And (two minutes to go) what was that funny crunching noise? Was the rock crumbling into the sea?

One minute to go and they'd be eleven.   
Thirty seconds... twenty ... ten... nine -- maybe they'd wake Dudley and Mary up, just to annoy them -- three... two... one...

BOOM.

The whole shack shivered and Harry and Y/N sat bolt upright, staring at the door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in.


	4. ~Year One~  ||Chapter Four|| The Keeper Of Keys

BOOM. They knocked again. Dudley jerked awake.  
"Where's the cannon?" he said stupidly.

There was a crash behind them and Uncle Vernon and uncle Richard came skidding into the room. They were holding rifles in their hands -- now they knew what had been in the long, thin packages they had brought with them.

"Who's there?" Mr Dursley shouted. "I warn you -- I'm armed!"

There was a pause. Then -- 

SMASH! 

The door was hit with such force that it swung clean off its hinges and with a deafening crash landed flat on the floor.

A giant of a man was standing in the doorway. His face was almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles under all the hair.

The giant squeezed his way into the hut, stooping so that his head just brushed the ceiling. He bent down, picked up the door, and fitted it easily back into its frame. The noise of the storm outside dropped a little. He turned to look at them all. 

"Couldn't make us a cup o' tea, could yeh? It's not been an easy journey..."

He strode over to the sofa where Dudley and Mary sat frozen with fear.

"Budge up, yeh great lumps," said the stranger.

Dudley and Mary squeaked and ran to hide behind their mothers, who were crouching, terrified, behind Uncle Vernon and uncle Richard .

"An' here's Harry and Y/N!" said the giant.   
Harry and Y/N looked up into the fierce, wild, shadowy face and saw that the beetle eyes were crinkled in a smile.

"Las' time I saw you, ye’kids were only baby’s," said the giant. "Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh've got yet mom's eyes. An Y/N Ye look jus’ like yer mother."

Uncle Vernon and uncle Richard made a funny rasping noise.

I demand that you leave at once, sit!" Mr Bell said. "You are breaking and entering!"

"Ah, shut up, Bell , yeh great prune," said the giant; he reached over the back of the sofa, jerked the gun out of Uncle Richards hands, bent it into a knot as easily as if it had been made of rubber, and threw it into a corner of the room,doing the same with mr Dursley’s gun.

"Anyway -- Harry, Y/N," said the giant, turning his back on the Dursley’s and Bells, "a very happy birthday to yeh both. Got summat fer yeh here -- I mighta sat on it at some point, but it'll taste all right.”

From an inside pocket of his black overcoat he pulled a slightly squashed box. Harry and Y/N opened it together with trembling fingers. Inside was a large, sticky chocolate cake with Happy Birthday Harry and Y/N written on it in green icing.

Harry and Y/N looked up at the giant. They meant to say thank you, but the words got lost on the way to their mouth, and what they said instead was, "Who are you?"

The giant chuckled.

"True, I haven't introduced meself. Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts."

He held out an enormous hand and shook Harry's whole arm and then went on to shake Y/N’s whole arm as-well.

"What about that tea then, eh?" he said, rubbing his hands together. "I'd not say no ter summat stronger if yeh've got it, mind."

His eyes fell on the empty grate with the shriveled chip bags in it and he snorted. He bent down over the fireplace; they couldn't see what he was doing but when he drew back a second later, there was a roaring fire there. It filled the whole damp hut with flickering light and Harry and Y/N felt the warmth wash over them as though they'd sunk into a hot bath.

The giant sat back down on the sofa, which sagged under his weight, and began taking all sorts of things out of the pockets of his coat: a copper kettle, a squashy package of sausages, a poker, a teapot, several chipped mugs, and a bottle of some amber liquid that he took a swig from before starting to make tea. Soon the hut was full of the sound and smell of sizzling sausage. Nobody said a thing while the giant was working, but as he slid the first six fat, juicy, slightly burnt sausages from the poker, Dudley and Mary fidgeted a little. Uncle Vernon and uncle Richard said sharply, "Don't touch anything he gives you, Dudley." “The same goes for you Mary.”

The giant chuckled darkly. 

"Yet great puddin' of a son and daughter don' need fattenin' anymore, Dursley,Bell, don' worry."

He passed the sausages to Harry and Y/N, who were so hungry he had never tasted anything so wonderful, but he still couldn't take his eyes off the giant. Finally, as nobody seemed about to explain anything, he said, "I'm sorry, but I still don't really know who you are."

The giant took a gulp of tea and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Call me Hagrid," he said, "everyone does. An' like I told yeh, I'm Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts -- yeh'll know all about Hogwarts, o' course. 

"Er -- no," said Harry and Y/N

Hagrid looked shocked.

"Sorry," Harry and Y/N said quickly.

"Sorry?" barked Hagrid, turning to stare at the Dursleys and the bells, who shrank back into the shadows. "It' s them who should be sorry! I knew yeh weren't gettin' yer letters but I never thought yeh wouldn't even know abou' Hogwarts, fer cryin' out loud! Did yeh never wonder where yer parents learned it all?"

"All what?" asked Harry and Y/N.

"ALL WHAT?" Hagrid thundered. "Now wait jus' one second!"

He had leapt to his feet. In his anger he seemed to fill the whole hut. The Dursleys and Bells were cowering against the wall.

"Do you mean ter tell me," he growled at the Dursleys, "that these children-- these children ! -- knows nothin' abou' -- about ANYTHING?" 

Harry and Y/N thought this was going a bit far. Tey had been to school, after all, and their marks weren't bad.

"I know some things," he said Y/N nodding in agreement . "I can, you know, do math and stuff." Y/N says but Hagrid simply waved his hand and said, "About our world, I mean. Your world. My world. Yer parents' world." 

"What world?" 

Hagrid looked as if he was about to explode.   
"DURSLEY!BELL!" he boomed.

Uncle Vernon and uncle Richard , who both had gone very pale, whispered something that sounded like "Mimblewimble."   
Hagrid stared wildly at Harry. 

"But yeh both must know about Yer parents ," he said. "I mean, they're famous. You're both famous."

"What? My -- my mom and dad weren't famous, were they?" Y/N and Harry said together 

"Yeh don' know... neither of yeh know..." Hagrid ran his fingers through his hair, fixing Harry with a bewildered stare.

"Yeh don' know what yeh are?" he said finally. 

Uncle Vernon and uncle Richard suddenly found their voices.

"Stop!" They commanded. "Stop right there, sit! I forbid you to tell the children anything!"

A braver man than Vernon Dursley and Richard Bell would have quailed under the furious look Hagrid now gave them; when Hagrid spoke, his every syllable trembled with rage.

"You never told them? Never told them what was in the letter Dumbledore left fer them? I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it, Dursley!you too Bell! An' you've kept it from them all these years?"

"Kept what from us?" said Harry and Y/N eagerly.

"STOP! I FORBID YOU!" yelled The two uncles in panic.

Aunt Petunia and aunt Brenda gave a gasp of horror. 

"Ah, go boil yer heads, all of yeh," said Hagrid. "Harry -- yer a wizard,and Y/N yer a witch.”

There was silence inside the hut. Only the sea and the whistling wind could be heard.   
"-- a what?" gasped Harry and Y/N.

"A wizard an’ witch,o' course," said Hagrid, sitting back down on the sofa, which groaned and sank even lower, "an' a thumpin' good'un, I'd say, once yeh've both been trained up a bit. With a mum an' dad like both of yours, what else would yeh both be? An' I reckon it's abou' time yeh both read yer letters."

Harry and Y/N stretched out their hands at last to take the yellowish envelope, addressed in emerald green to Mr. H. Potter, The Floor, Hut-on-the-Rock, The Sea, And Miss. Y/F/I L/N, The Floor, Hut-on-the-Rock, The Sea. 

They pulled out the letters and read:

HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY 

Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE   
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Mr. Potter and Miss.(L/N)  
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31. Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall,

Deputy Headmistress

Questions exploded inside Harry and (Y/N)’s head like fireworks and they couldn't decide which to ask first. After a few minutes harry stammered, "What does it mean, they await my owl?"

"Gallopin' Gorgons, that reminds me," said Hagrid, clapping a hand to his forehead with enough force to knock over a cart horse, and from yet another pocket inside his overcoat he pulled an owl -- a real, live, rather ruffled-looking owl -- a long quill, and a roll of parchment. With his tongue between his teeth he scribbled a note that Harry and (Y/N) could read upside down: 

Dear Professor Dumbledore,   
Given Harry and (Y/N) their letter.   
Taking them to buy their things tomorrow.   
Weather's horrible. Hope you're Well.   
Hagrid 

Hagrid rolled up the note, gave it to the owl, which clamped it in its beak, went to the door, and threw the owl out into the storm. Then he came back and sat down as though this was as normal as talking on the telephone. 

Harry and (Y/N) realized their mouths were open and closed them quickly. "Where was I?" said Hagrid, but at that moment, Uncle Vernon and uncle Richard , still ashen-faced but looking very angry, moved into the firelight. 

"They’re not going," the two uncles said together   
.   
Hagrid grunted. 

"I'd like ter see a great Muggles like yourselves stop them," he said.

"A what?" said (Y/N) interested.

"A Muggle," said Hagrid, "it's what we call nonmagic folk like them. An' it's your bad luck you both grew up in family’s o' the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on."

"We swore when we took them in we'd put a stop to that rubbish," said Uncle Vernon, uncle Richard nodding his head in agreement "swore we'd stamp it out of them! Witch and Wizard indeed!" 

"You knew?" said Harry. "You knew we were m-magical?" 

"Knew!" shrieked Aunt Petunia suddenly as aunt Brenda stayed quiet . "Knew! Of course we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was? Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that-that school-and came home every vacation with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was -- a freak! But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!" 

She stopped to draw a deep breath and then went ranting on. It seemed she had been wanting to say all this for years.

"Then she met that Potter at school and they left and got married and had you, and of course I knew you'd be just the same, just as strange, just as -- as -- abnormal -- and then, if you please, she went and got herself and her friends blown up and we and the bells got landed with you two!"

Harry and (Y/N) had gone very white. As soon as they found their voice they said, "Blown up? You told us they died in a car crash!"

"CAR CRASH!" roared Hagrid, jumping up so angrily that the Dursleys scuttled back to their corner . "How could a car crash killed Lily an' James Potter along with (F/F/N) an’ (M/F/N) (L/N) ? It's an outrage! A scandal! Harry Potter and (Y/N) not knowin' their own story when every kid in our world knows their names!"

"But why? What happened?" Harry asked urgently. 

The anger faded from Hagrid's face. He looked suddenly anxious. "I never expected this," he said, in a low, worried voice. "I had no idea, when Dumbledore told me there might be trouble gettin' hold of yeh both, how much yeh both didn't know. Ah, Harry,(Y/N),I don' know if I'm the right person ter tell yeh -- but someones gotta -- yeh can't go off ter Hogwarts not knowin'."

He threw a dirty look at the Dursleys and the Bells.

"Well, it's best yeh both know as much as I can tell yeh -- mind, I can't tell yeh everythin', it's a great myst'ry, parts of it...."

He sat down, stared into the fire for a few seconds, and then said, "It begins, I suppose, with -- with a person called -- but it's incredible yeh don't know his name, everyone in our world knows --"

"Who? "

"Well -- I don' like sayin' the name if I can help it. No one does."

"Why not?" (Y/N) said

"Gulpin' gargoyles, Harry,(Y/N) people are still scared. Blimey, this is difficult. See, there was this wizard who went... bad. As bad as you could go. Worse. Worse than worse. His name was..."

Hagrid and (Y/N) gulped, but no words came out.

"Could you write it down?" Harry suggested.

"Nah -can't spell it. All right -- Voldemort. " Hagrid shuddered. "Don' make me say it again. Anyway, this -- this wizard, about twenty years ago now, started lookin' fer followers. Got 'em, too -- some were afraid, some just wanted a bit o' his power, 'cause he was gettin' himself power, all right. Dark days, Harry,(Y/N). Didn't know who ter trust, didn't dare get friendly with strange wizards or witches... terrible things happened. He was takin' over. 'Course, some stood up to him -- an' he killed 'em. Horribly. One o' the only safe places left was Hogwarts. Reckon Dumbledore's the only one You-Know-Who was afraid of. Didn't dare try takin' the school, not jus' then, anyway.

"Now,both yer mums an' dads were as good a witches an' wizards as I ever knew. Head boys an' girls at Hogwarts in their day! Suppose the myst'ry is why You-Know-Who never tried to get 'em on his side before... probably knew they were too close ter Dumbledore ter want anythin' ter do with the Dark Side.

"Maybe he thought he could persuade 'em... maybe he just wanted 'em outta the way. All anyone knows is, he turned up in the village where you was all living, on Halloween ten years ago. You both were just a year old. He came ter yer house an' -- an' --"

Hagrid suddenly pulled out a very dirty, spotted handkerchief and blew his nose with a sound like a foghorn.

"Sorry," he said. "But it's that sad -- knew both yer mums an' dads, an' nicer people yeh couldn't find -- anyway..."

"You-Know-Who killed 'em. An' then -- an' this is the real myst'ry of the thing -- he tried to kill both you, too. Wanted ter make a clean job of it, I suppose, or maybe he just liked killin' by then. But he couldn't do it. Never wondered how you got those marks on yer foreheads? That was no ordinary cut. That's what yeh get when a Powerful, evil curse touches yeh -- took care of yer mum an' dad an' yer house, even -- but it didn't work on you, an' that's why yer both famous, Harry an’ (Y/N). No one ever lived after he decided ter kill 'em, no one except you two, an' he'd killed some o' the best witches an' wizards of the age -- the McKinnons, the Bones, the Prewetts -- an' you were the only a babies , an' you lived." 

Something very painful was going on in Harry's and Y/N’s mind. As Hagrid's story came to a close, Harry and Y/N saw again the blinding flash of green light, more clearly than they had ever remembered it before -- and they remembered something else, for the first time in their life: a high, cold, cruel laugh. 

Hagrid was watching them sadly.

"Took yeh both from the ruined house myself, on Dumbledore's orders. Brought yeh both ter these lots..."

"Load of old tosh," said Uncle Vernon and uncle Richard . Harry and Y/N jumped; they had almost forgotten that the Dursley’s and Bell’s were there. Uncle Vernon certainly seemed to have got back his courage. He was glaring at Hagrid and his fists were clenched.

"Now, you listen here, kids," uncle Vernon and Richard snarled, "I accept there's something strange about you both, probably nothing a good beating wouldn't have cured -- and as for all this about both your parents, well, they were weirdos, no denying it, and the world's better off without them in my opinion -- asked for all they got, getting mixed up with these wizarding types -- just what I expected, always knew they'd come to a sticky end --"

But at that moment, Hagrid leapt from the sofa and drew a battered pink umbrella from inside his coat. Pointing this at Uncle Vernon like a sword, he said, "I'm warning you, Dursley ,you too Bell ,-I'm warning you -- one more word... " 

In danger of being speared on the end of an umbrella by a bearded giant, Uncle Vernon's and uncle Bells courage failed again; they flattened themselves against the wall and fell silent.

"That's better," said Hagrid, breathing heavily and sitting back down on the sofa, which this time sagged right down to the floor.   
Harry and Y/N, meanwhile, still had questions to ask, hundreds of them.

"But what happened to Vol--, sorry -- I mean, You-Know-Who?"

"Good question, Harry. Disappeared. Vanished. Same night he tried ter kill you an’ Y/N. Makes yeh both even more famous. That's the biggest myst'ry, see... he was gettin' more an' more powerful -- why'd he go?

"Some say he died. Codswallop, in my opinion. Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die. Some say he's still out there, bidin' his time, like, but I don' believe it. People who was on his side came back ter ours. Some of 'em came outta kinda trances. Don-reckon they could've done if he was comin' back.

"Most of us reckon he's still out there somewhere but lost his powers. Too weak to carry on. 'Cause somethin' about you two finished him, Harry,Y/N. There was somethin' goin' on that night he hadn't counted on -- I dunno what it was, no one does -- but somethin' about you two stumped him, all right."

Hagrid looked at Harry and Y/N with warmth and respect blazing in his eyes, but Harry and Y/N, instead of feeling pleased and proud, felt quite sure there had been a horrible mistake. A wizard/witch? Him/her? How could they possibly be? They’d spent their life being clouted by Dudley and Mary , and bullied by Aunt Petunia, Aunt Brenda and Uncle Vernon and uncle Richard ; if they were really a wizard and witch, why hadn't they been turned into warty toads every time they'd tried to lock them in their cupboards? If they’d once defeated the greatest sorcerer in the world, how come Dudley and Mary had always been able to kick them around like a football?

"Hagrid," harry said quietly, "I think you must have made a mistake. I don't think I can be a wizard."

“And I don’t think I can be a witch” Y/N said just as quietly if not more so.

To their surprise, Hagrid chuckled.

"Not a wizard or witch, eh? Never made things happen when you both was scared or angry?"

Harry and Y/N looked into the fire. Now that they came to think about it... every odd thing that had ever made their aunts and uncle s furious with them had happened when they, Harry and Y/N, had been upset or angry... chased by Dudley's and Marys gangs, they had somehow found themselves out of their reach... dreading going to school with those ridiculous haircuts, they’d managed to make grow back... and the very last time Dudley and Mary had hit them, hadn't they got their revenge, without even realizing what they were doing it? Hadn't they set a boa constrictor on them? 

Harry and Y/n looked back at Hagrid, smiling, and saw that Hagrid was positively beaming at them.

"See?" said Hagrid. "Harry Potter, not a wizard, Y/F/N Y/L/N, not a witch-- you wait, you'll both be right famous at Hogwarts."

But Uncle Vernon and uncle Richard weren’t going to give in without a fight.

"Haven't we told you he's not going?" They hissed. "They are going to Stonewall High and they'll be grateful for it. I've read those letters and they needs all sorts of rubbish -- spell books and wands and --"

"If they want ter go, a great Muggle like you won't stop him," growled Hagrid. "Stop an' Potter' s son goin' ter Hogwarts! And the L/N’s daughter!Yer mad. Their name's been down ever since they were born. They’re off ter the finest school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world. Seven years there and they won't know themselves . They'll be with youngsters of their own sort, fer a change, an' they'll be under the greatest headmaster Hogwarts ever had Albus Dumbled--"

"WE ARE NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH THEM MAGIC TRICKS!" yelled Uncle Vernon.

But he had finally gone too far. Hagrid seized his umbrella and whirled it over his head, "NEVER," he thundered, "- INSULT- ALBUS- DUMBLEDORE- IN- FRONT- OF- ME!"   
  
He brought the umbrella swishing down through the air to point at Dudley and Mary -- there was a flash of violet light, a sound like a firecracker, sharp squeals, and the next second, Dudley and Mary were dancing on the spot with their hands clasped over their fat bottoms, howling in pain. When they turned their back on them, Harry and Y/N saw a curly pig's tail poking through a hole in their trousers.

Uncle Vernon and uncle Richard roared. Pulling Aunt Petunia, Aunt Brenda, Dudley and Mary into the other room, they cast one last terrified look at Hagrid and slammed the door behind them.

Hagrid looked down at his umbrella and stroked his beard.

"Shouldn'ta lost me temper," he said ruefully, "but it didn't work anyway. Meant ter turn them into pigs, but I suppose they were so much like pigs anyway there wasn't much left ter do."

He cast a sideways look at Harry and Y/N under his bushy eyebrows.

"Be grateful if yeh both didn't mention that ter anyone at Hogwarts," he said. "I'm -- er -- not supposed ter do magic, strictly speakin'. I was allowed ter do a bit ter follow yeh both an' get yer letters to yeh an' stuff -- one o' the reasons I was so keen ter take on the job

"Why aren't you supposed to do magic?" asked Harry.

"Oh, well -- I was at Hogwarts meself but I -- er -- got expelled, ter tell yeh the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wand in half an' everything. But Dumbledore let me stay on as gamekeeper. Great man, Dumbledore." 

"Why were you expelled?" Y/N asked

"It's gettin' late and we've got lots ter do tomorrow," said Hagrid loudly. "Gotta get up ter town, get you both all yer books an' that."

He took off his thick black coat and threw it to Harry and Y/N.

"You can both kip under that," he said. "Don' mind if it wriggles a bit, I think I still got a couple o' dormice in one o' the pockets."


	5. ~Year One~  ||Chapter Five|| Diagon Ally

Y/N woke early the next morning. Although they could tell it was daylight, they kept their eyes shut tight.

"It was a dream, they told themselves firmly. "I dreamed a giant called Hagrid came to tell me and and Harry that we were going to a school for wizards and witches. When I open my eyes I'll be at home in my cupboard."

There was suddenly a loud tapping noise.

And there's Aunt Brenda knocking on the door, Y/N thought, her heart sinking. But she still didn't open her eyes. It had been such a good dream.

Tap. Tap. Tap. 

"All right," Harry mumbled from beside Y/N thinking almost the exact same thing as her, "I'm getting up."

He sat up and Hagrid's heavy coat fell off him and Y/N. The hut was full of sunlight, the storm was over, Hagrid himself was asleep on the collapsed sofa, and there was an owl rapping its claw on the window, a newspaper held in its beak.

Harry turned to Y/N whisper yelling at her “It wasn’t a dream!”Y/N jolting awake,then they both scrambled to to their feet, so happy they felt as though a large balloon was swelling inside them.Harry went straight to the window,Y/N following closely behind him as Harry jerked the window open. The owl swooped in and dropped the newspaper on top of Hagrid, who didn't wake up. The owl then fluttered onto the floor and began to attack Hagrid's coat. 

"Don't do that."

Harry tried to wave the owl out of the way as Y/N watched, but it snapped its beak fiercely at them and carried on savaging the coat.

"Hagrid!" said Harry loudly. "There's an owl

"Pay him," Hagrid grunted into the sofa.

"What?" Y/N said

"He wants payin' fer deliverin' the paper. Look in the pockets." Hagrid's coat seemed to be made of nothing but pockets -- bunches of keys, slug pellets, balls of string, peppermint humbugs, teabags... finally, Harry and Y/N both pulled out handfuls of strange-looking coins.

"Give him five Knuts," said Hagrid sleepily.

"Knuts?" Y/N asked  
"The little bronze ones."

Harry counted out five little bronze coins out of his and Y/N’s hands, and the owl held out his leg so Harry could put the money into a small leather pouch tied to it. Then he flew off through the open window.

Hagrid yawned loudly, sat up, and stretched.

"Best be Off, Harry, Y/N, lots ter do today, gotta get up ter London an' buy both of y’all yer stuff fer school."

Harry and Y/N were both turning over the wizard coins and looking at them and then at each other with questioning looks. They both had just thought of something that made them both feel as though the happy balloon inside them had got a puncture.

"Um -- Hagrid?"Y/N said 

"Mm?" said Hagrid, who was pulling on his huge boots.

"We haven't got any money -- and you heard Uncle Vernon and Richard last night ... he won't pay for me to go and learn magic." Harry finished for Y/N

"Don't worry about that," said Hagrid, standing up and scratching his head. "D'yeh think both of yers parents didn't leave yeh anything?"

"But if the house was destroyed --"

"They didn' keep their gold in the house, kids! Nah, first stop fer us is Gringotts. Wizards' bank. Have a sausage, they're not bad cold -- an' I wouldn' say no teh a bit o' yer birthday cake, neither."

"Wizards have banks?"

"Just the one. Gringotts. Run by goblins."   
Harry and Y/N dropped the bit of sausage they were holding one after the other. 

"Goblins?" Y/N asked

"Yeah -- so yeh'd be mad ter try an' rob it, I'll tell yeh that. Never mess with goblins, Harry, Y/N. Gringotts is the safest place in the world fer anything yeh want ter keep safe -- 'cept maybe Hogwarts. As a matter o' fact, I gotta visit Gringotts anyway. Fer Dumbledore. Hogwarts business." Hagrid drew himself up proudly. "He usually gets me ter do important stuff fer him. Fetchin' you two gettin' things from Gringotts -- knows he can trust me, see.

"Got everythin' you two?Come on, then."

Harry and Y/N followed Hagrid out onto the rock. The sky was quite clear now and the sea gleamed in the sunlight. The boat Uncle Vernon and Richard had hired was still there, with a lot of water in the bottom after the storm.

"How did you get here?" Harry asked, looking around for another boat. "Flew," said Hagrid.

"Flew?" Y/N asked slightly amazed.

"Yeah -- but we'll go back in this. Not s'pposed ter use magic now I've got yeh both." 

They settled down in the boat, Harry and Y/N still staring at Hagrid, trying to imagine him flying.

"Seems a shame ter row, though," said Hagrid, giving Harry and Y/N another of his sideways looks. "If I was ter -- er -- speed things up a bit, would either of yeh mind not mentionin' it at Hogwarts?"

"Of course not," said Harry Y/N nodding in agreement , eager to see more magic. Hagrid pulled out the pink umbrella again, tapped it twice on the side of the boat, and they sped off toward land.

"Why would you be mad to try and rob Gringotts?" Harry asked.

"Spells -- enchantments," said Hagrid, unfolding his newspaper as he spoke. "They say there's dragons guardin' the highsecurity vaults. And then yeh gotta find yer way -- Gringotts is hundreds of miles under London, see. Deep under the Underground. Yeh'd die of hunger tryin' ter get out, even if yeh did manage ter get yer hands on summat."

Harry and Y/N sat and thought about this while Hagrid read his newspaper, the Daily Prophet. Harry and Y/N had learned from Uncle Vernon and uncle Richard that people liked to be left alone while they did this, but it was very difficult, they'd never had so many questions in their life.

"Ministry o' Magic messin' things up as usual," Hagrid muttered, turning the page.

"There's a Ministry of Magic?" Y/N asked, before she could stop herself.

"'Course," said Hagrid. "They wanted Dumbledore fer Minister, O ' course, but he'd never leave Hogwarts, so old Cornelius Fudge got the job. Bungler if ever there was one. So he pelts Dumbledore with owls every morning, askin' fer advice."

"But what does a Ministry of Magic do?" Harry asked

"Well, their main job is to keep it from the Muggles that there's still witches an' wizards up an' down the country."

"Why?" Harry and Y/N asked together.

"Why? Blimey, Harry, Y/N, everyone'd be wantin' magic solutions to their problems. Nah, we're best left alone."

At this moment the boat bumped gently into the harbor wall. Hagrid folded up his newspaper, and they clambered up the stone steps onto the street.

Passersby stared a lot at Hagrid as they walked through the little town to the station. Neither Harry nor Y/N could blame them. Not only was Hagrid twice as tall as anyone else, he kept pointing at perfectly ordinary things like parking meters and saying loudly, "See that, Harry and Y/N? Things these Muggles dream up, eh?"

"Hagrid," said Harry, Y/N and him both panting a bit as they ran to keep up, "did you say there are dragons at Gringotts?"

"Well, so they say," said Hagrid. "Crikey, I'd like a dragon."

"You'd like one?" Y/N asked.

"Wanted one ever since I was a kid -- here we go." 

They had reached the station. There was a train to London in five minutes' time. Hagrid, who didn't understand "Muggle money," as he called it, gave the bills to Harry so he could buy their tickets with Y/N’s help.

People stared more than ever on the train. Hagrid took up two seats and sat knitting what looked like a canary-yellow circus tent.

"Still got yer’s and Y/N’s letter, Harry?" he asked as he counted stitches. Harry and took the parchment envelope out of his pocket.

"Good," said Hagrid. "There's a list there of everything yeh will both need."

Harry unfolded a second piece of paper he and Y/N hadn't noticed the night before, and read:

HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY 

UNIFORM 

First-year students will require: 

1\. Three sets of plain work robes (black)

2\. One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear 

3\. One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar) 

4\. One winter cloak (black, silver fastenings) 

Please note that all pupils' clothes should carry name tags

COURSE BOOKS 

All students should have a copy of each of the following:

The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) by Miranda Goshawk

A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot

Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling 

A Beginners' Guide to Transfiguration by Emetic Switch

One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore 

Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger 

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander 

The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection by Quentin Trimble 

OTHER EQUIPMENT

wand cauldron (pewter, standard size 2) set 

glass or crystal phials 

telescope set 

brass scales 

Students may also bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad

PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS 

"Can we buy all this in London?" Harry and Y/N wondered aloud.

"If yeh know where to go," said Hagrid.   
neither Harry nor (Y/N) had ever been to London before. Although Hagrid seemed to know where he was going, he was obviously not used to getting there in an ordinary way.

He got stuck in the ticket barrier on the Underground, and complained loudly that the seats were too small and the trains too slow.

"I don't know how the Muggles manage without magic," he said as they climbed a broken-down escalator that led up to a bustling road lined with shops.

Hagrid was so huge that he parted the crowd easily; all Harry and Y/N had to do was keep close behind him. They passed book shops and music stores, hamburger restaurants and cinemas, but nowhere that looked as if it could sell you a magic wand. This was just an ordinary street full of ordinary people. Could there really be piles of wizard gold buried miles beneath them? Were there really shops that sold spell books and broomsticks? Might this not all be some huge joke that the Dursleys and the Bells had cooked up? If Harry and Y/N hadn't known that the Dursleys and the Bells had no sense of humor, they might have thought so; yet somehow, even though everything Hagrid had told them so far was unbelievable, Harry and Y/N couldn't help trusting him.

"This is it," said Hagrid, coming to a halt, "the Leaky Cauldron. It's a famous place."

It was a tiny, grubby-looking pub. If Hagrid hadn't pointed it out, neither Harry nor Y/N would have noticed it was there. The people hurrying by didn't glance at it. Their eyes slid from the big book shop on one side to the record shop on the other as if they couldn't see the Leaky Cauldron at all. In fact, Harry and Y/N had the most peculiar feeling that only Hagrid and themselves could see it. Before either of them could mention this, Hagrid had steered them inside.

For a famous place, it was very dark and shabby. A few old women were sitting in a corner, drinking tiny glasses of sherry. One of them was smoking a long pipe. A little man in a top hat was talking to the old bartender, who was quite bald and looked like a toothless walnut. The low buzz of chatter stopped when they walked in. Everyone seemed to know Hagrid; they waved and smiled at him, and the bartender reached for a glass, saying, "The usual, Hagrid?" 

"Can't, Tom, I'm on Hogwarts business," said Hagrid, clapping his great hand on Harry's and Y/N’s shoulder and making Both of their knees buckle.

"Good Lord," said the bartender, peering at Harry and Y/N, "is this -- can this be --?"

The Leaky Cauldron had suddenly gone completely still and silent.

"Bless my soul," whispered the old bartender, "Harry Potter, Y/N L/N... what an honor."

He hurried out from behind the bar, rushed toward Harry and Y/N and seized their hands, tears in his eyes.

"Welcome back, Mr. Potter, Miss. L/N welcome back."

Harry didn't know what to say and neither did Y/N. Everyone was looking at them. The old woman with the pipe was puffing on it without realizing it had gone out. Hagrid was beaming.

Then there was a great scraping of chairs and the next moment, Harry and Y/N found themselves shaking hands with everyone in the Leaky Cauldron.

"Doris Crockford, Mr. Potter, Miss. L/N can't believe I'm meeting you both at last."

"So proud, Mr. Potter, I'm just so proud."

"Always wanted to shake your hand -- I'm all of a flutter."

"Delighted, Miss. L/N, just can't tell you, Diggle's the name, Dedalus Diggle."

"I've seen you before!" said Harry, as Dedalus Diggle's top hat fell off in his excitement. "You bowed to us once in a shop." Y/N nods remembering the occurrence as-well.

"They remember!" cried Dedalus Diggle, looking around at everyone. "Did you hear that? They remember me!" Harry and Y/N shook hands again and again -- Doris Crockford kept coming back for more.

A pale young man made his way forward, very nervously. One of his eyes was twitching.

"Professor Quirrell!" said Hagrid. "Harry, Y/N, Professor Quirrell will be one of your teachers at Hogwarts."

"P-P-Potter, (L-(L-(L/N)" stammered Professor Quirrell, grasping Harry's hand then Y/N’s hand, "c-can't t-tell you how p- pleased I am to meet you both ."

"What sort of magic do you teach, Professor Quirrell?" Y/N asked

"D-Defense Against the D-D-Dark Arts," muttered Professor Quirrell, as though he'd rather not think about it. "N-not that you n-need it, eh, P-P-Potter? Neither do you,eh, (L-(L-(L/N)" He laughed nervously. "You'll both be g-getting all your equipment, I suppose? I've g-got to p-pick up a new b-book on vampires, m-myself." He looked terrified at the very thought.

But the others wouldn't let Professor Quirrell keep Harry and Y/N to himself. It took almost ten minutes to get away from them all. At last, Hagrid managed to make himself heard over the babble.

"Must get on -- lots ter buy. Come on, Harry. Come on, Y/N"

Doris Crockford shook Harry's and Y/N’S hand one last time, and Hagrid led them through the bar and out into a small, walled courtyard, where there was nothing but a trash can and a few weeds.

Hagrid grinned at Harry and Y/N.

"Told yeh, didn't I? Told yeh both you was famous. Even Professor Quirrell was tremblin' ter meet yeh both -- mind you, he's usually tremblin'."

"Is he always that nervous?" Harry asked

"Oh, yeah. Poor bloke. Brilliant mind. He was fine while he was studyin' outta books but then he took a year off ter get some firsthand experience.... They say he met vampires in the Black Forest, and there was a nasty bit o' trouble with a hag -- never been the same since. Scared of the students, scared of his own subject now, where's me umbrella?"

Vampires? Hags? Harry's and Y/N’s heads were swimming. Hagrid, meanwhile, was counting bricks in the wall above the trash can. 

"Three up... two across he muttered. "Right, stand back you two."

He tapped the wall three times with the point of his umbrella.

The brick he had touched quivered -- it wriggled -- in the middle, a small hole appeared -- it grew wider and wider -- a second later they were facing an archway large enough even for Hagrid, an archway onto a cobbled street that twisted and turned out of sight.

"Welcome," said Hagrid, "to Diagon Alley."   
He grinned at Harry's and Y/N’s amazement. They stepped through the archway. Harry and Y/N looked quickly over their shoulders and saw the archway shrink instantly back into solid wall.

The sun shone brightly on a stack of cauldrons outside the nearest shop. Cauldrons -- All Sizes - Copper, Brass, Pewter, Silver -- Self-Stirring -- Collapsible, said a sign hanging over them.

"Yeah, you'll both be needin' one," said Hagrid, "but we gotta get yer money first."

Harry and Y/N wished they had about eight more eyes. They turned their heads in every direction as they walked up the street, trying to look at everything at once: the shops, the things outside them, the people doing their shopping. A plump woman outside an Apothecary was shaking her head as they passed, saying, "Dragon liver, seventeen Sickles an ounce, they're mad...."

A low, soft hooting came from a dark shop with a sign saying Eeylops Owl Emporium -- Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, and Snowy. Several boys of about Harry's and Y/N’s age had their noses pressed against a window with broomsticks in it. "Look," Harry and Y/N’s heard one of them say, "the new Nimbus Two Thousand -- fastest ever --" There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments neither Harry nor Y/N had ever seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels' eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon....

"Gringotts," said Hagrid.

They had reached a snowy white building that towered over the other little shops. Standing beside its burnished bronze doors, wearing a uniform of scarlet and gold, was -

"Yeah, that's a goblin," said Hagrid quietly as they walked up the white stone steps toward him. The goblin was about a head shorter than Harry and Y/N. He had a swarthy, clever face, a pointed beard and, Harry and Y/N noticed, very long fingers and feet. He bowed as they walked inside. Now they were facing a second pair of doors, silver this time, with words engraved upon them:

Enter, stranger, but take heed 

Of what awaits the sin of greed, 

For those who take, but do not earn,

Must pay most dearly in their turn.

So if you seek beneath our floors

A treasure that was never yours, 

Thief, you have been warned, beware

Of finding more than treasure there.

"Like I said, Yeh'd be mad ter try an' rob it," said Hagrid.

A pair of goblins bowed them through the silver doors and they were in a vast marble hall. About a hundred more goblins were sitting on high stools behind a long counter, scribbling in large ledgers, weighing coins in brass scales, examining precious stones through eyeglasses. There were too many doors to count leading off the hall, and yet more goblins were showing people in and out of these. Hagrid, Harry, and Y/N made for the counter.

"Morning," said Hagrid to a free goblin. "We've come ter take some money outta Mr. Harry Potter's safe. We've come ter take some money outta Y/N L/N’s safe aswell"

"You have their keys, Sir?"

"Got them here somewhere," said Hagrid, and he started emptying his pockets onto the counter, scattering a handful of moldy dog biscuits over the goblin's book of numbers. The goblin wrinkled his nose. Harry and Y/N watched the goblin on their right weighing a pile of rubies as big as glowing coals.

"Got em," said Hagrid at last, holding up two tiny golden keys.

The goblin looked at it closely.

"That seems to be in order."

"An' I've also got a letter here from Professor Dumbledore," said Hagrid importantly, throwing out his chest. "It's about the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen." 

The goblin read the letter carefully.

"Very well," he said, handing it back to Hagrid, "I will have Someone take you down to both vaults. Griphook!"

Griphook was yet another goblin. Once Hagrid had crammed all the dog biscuits back inside his pockets, he, Harry, and Y/N followed Griphook toward one of the doors leading off the hall.

"What's the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen?" Harry asked.

"Can't tell either of yeh that," said Hagrid mysteriously. "Very secret. Hogwarts business. Dumbledore's trusted me. More'n my job's worth ter tell yeh that."

Griphook held the door open for them. Harry and Y/N, who both had expected more marble, was surprised. They were in a narrow stone passageway lit with flaming torches. It sloped steeply downward and there were little railway tracks on the floor. Griphook whistled and a small cart came hurtling up the tracks toward them. They climbed in -- Hagrid with some difficulty -- and were off.

At first they just hurtled through a maze of twisting passages. Harry and Y/N tried to remember, left, right, right, left, middle fork, right, left, but it was impossible. The rattling cart seemed to know its own way, because Griphook wasn't steering.

Harry's and Y/N’s eyes stung as the cold air rushed past them, but they kept their eyes wide open. Once, they thought they saw a burst of fire at the end of a passage and twisted around to see if it was a dragon, but too late - - they plunged even deeper, passing an underground lake where huge stalactites and stalagmites grew from the ceiling and floor.

“I never know," Harry called to Hagrid over the noise of the cart, "what's the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite?"

"Stalagmite's got an 'm' in it," said   
Hagrid . "An' don' ask me questions just now, I think I'm gonna be sick."

He did look very green, and when the cart stopped at last beside a small door in the passage wall, Hagrid got out and had to lean against the wall to stop his knees from trembling.

Griphook unlocked the door. A lot of green smoke came billowing out, and as it cleared, Harry and Y/N gasped. Inside were mounds of gold coins. Columns of silver. Heaps of little bronze Knuts.

"All yours," smiled Hagrid.

All Harry's -- it was incredible. The Dursleys couldn't have known about this or they'd have had it from him faster than blinking. How often had they complained how much Harry cost them to keep? And all the time there had been a small fortune belonging to him, buried deep under London.

Hagrid helped Harry pile some of it into a bag. 

"The gold ones are Galleons," he explained. "Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, it's easy enough. Right, that should be enough fer a couple o' terms, we'll keep the rest safe for yeh." 

Griphook unlocked the door next to Harry’s. A lot of green smoke came billowing out, and as it cleared, Y/N gasped again. Inside were even more mounds of gold coins. More columns of silver. More heaps of little bronze Knuts.

"All yours," Hagrid smiles again.

All Y/N’s -- it was incredible. The Bells couldn't have known about this or they'd have had it from him faster than blinking. How often had they complained how much Y/N cost them to keep? And all the time there had been a small fortune belonging to her, buried deep under London.

Hagrid helped Y/N pile some of it into a bag just like he did with Harry. 

"I know yeh probably already heard me tell Harry but, the gold ones are Galleons," he explained. "Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, it's easy enough. Right, what yeh have now should be enough fer a couple o' terms, we'll keep the rest safe for yeh." He turned to Griphook."Vault seven hundred and thirteen now, please, and can we go more slowly?"

"One speed only," said Griphook.   
They were going even deeper now and gathering speed. The air became colder and colder as they hurtled round tight corners. They went rattling over an underground ravine, and Harry leaned over the side to try to see what was down at the dark bottom, but Hagrid groaned and pulled him back by the scruff of his neck as Y/N watches and giggles.

Vault seven hundred and thirteen had no keyhole.

"Stand back," said Griphook importantly. He stroked the door gently with one of his long fingers and it simply melted away.

"If anyone but a Gringotts goblin tried that, they'd be sucked through the door and trapped in there," said Griphook.

"How often do you check to see if anyone's inside?" Harry asked.

"About once every ten years," said Griphook with a rather nasty grin. 

Something really extraordinary had to be inside this top security vault, Harry and Y/N were sure, and they leaned forward eagerly, expecting to see fabulous jewels at the very least -- but at first they thought it was empty.

Then they noticed a grubby little package wrapped up in brown paper lying on the floor. Hagrid picked it up and tucked it deep inside his coat. Harry and Y/N longed to know what it was, but knew better than to ask.

"Come on, back in this infernal cart, and don't talk to me on the way back, it's best if I keep me mouth shut," said Hagrid.

One wild cart ride later they stood blinking in the sunlight outside Gringotts. Neither Harry nor Y/N knew where to run first now that they had a bag full of money. They didn't have to know how many Galleons there were to a pound to know that he was holding more money than he'd had in his whole life -- more money than even Dudley and Mary had ever had.

"Both of yeh Might as well get yer uniform," said Hagrid, nodding toward Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. "Listen, Harry, Y/N, would yeh mind if I slipped off fer a pick-me-up in the Leaky Cauldron? I hate them Gringotts carts." He did still look a bit sick, so Harry and Y/N entered Madam Malkin's shop alone, feeling nervous.

Madam Malkin was a squat, smiling witch dressed all in mauve.

"Hogwarts, dearies?" she said, when Harry started to speak. "Got the lot here -- another young man being fitted up just now, in fact. "

In the back of the shop, a boy with a pale, pointed face was standing on a footstool while a second witch pinned up his long black robes. Madam Malkin stood Harry on a stool next to him and Y/N on the other side of him, slipped a long robe over his head and then another witch pulled a robe over Y/N’s head, and began to pin the robes to the right length.

"Hello," said the boy, "Hogwarts, too?"

"Yes," said Harry.

"My father's next door buying my books and mother's up the street looking at wands," said the boy. He had a bored, drawling voice.

"Then I'm going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own. I think I'll bully father into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow."

Harry and Y/N were strongly reminded of Dudley and Mary .

"Have either you got your own brooms?" the boy went on.

"No," said Harry.

“Neither do i” said Y/N

"Play Quidditch at all?"

"No," Harry and Y/N said again, wondering what on earth Quidditch could be.

"I do -- Father says it's a crime if I'm not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree. Know what house you'll be in yet?"

"No," said Y/N and Harry, feeling more stupid by the minute.

"Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I know I'll be in Slytherin, all our family have been -- imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?"

"Mmm," said Harry and Y/N, wishing they could say something a bit more interesting.

"I say, look at that man!" said the boy suddenly, nodding toward the front window. Hagrid was standing there, grinning at Harry and Y/N and pointing at three large ice creams to show he couldn't come in.

"That's Hagrid," said Harry, Y/N nodding in acknowledgment, pleased to know something the boy didn't. "He works at Hogwarts." Y/N finished for Harry.

"Oh," said the boy, "I've heard of him. He's a sort of servant, isn't he?"

"He's the gamekeeper," said Harry. He and Y/N were liking the boy less and less every second.

"Yes, exactly. I heard he's a sort of savage -- lives in a hut on the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic, and ends up setting fire to his bed."

"I think he's brilliant," said Y/N coldly, Harry nods in agreement.

"Do you?" said the boy, with a slight sneer. "Why is he with you? Where are both your parents?"

"They're dead," said Harry and Y/N shortly. They didn't feel much like going into the matter with this boy.

"Oh, sorry," said the other. not sounding sorry at all. "But they were our kind, weren't they?" 

"They were witches and wizards, if that's what you mean." Said Harry 

"I really don't think they should let the other sort in, do you? They're just not the same, they've never been brought up to know our ways. Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get the letter, imagine. I think they should keep it in the old wizarding families. What's your surname, anyway?" 

But before either Harry or Y/N could answer, Madam Malkin said, "That's both you and the girl done, my dear," and Harry as well as Y/N, not sorry for an excuse to stop talking to the boy, hopped down from the footstool.

"Well, I'll see you at Hogwarts, I suppose," said the drawling boy.

Harry and Y/N were rather quiet as they ate the ice cream Hagrid had bought him (chocolate and raspberry with chopped nuts).

"What's up?" said Hagrid.

"Nothing," Harry and Y/N lied. They stopped to buy parchment and quills. Harry and Y/N cheered up a bit when they found a bottle of ink that changed color as you wrote. When they had left the shop, Harry said, "Hagrid, what's Quidditch?"

"Blimey, Harry, I keep forgettin' how little yeh and Y/N know -- not knowin' about Quidditch!"

"Don't make us feel worse," said Y/N. They told Hagrid about the pale boy in Madam Malkin's.

"--and he said people from Muggle families shouldn't even be allowed in."

"Yer neither of yeh are from a Muggle family. If he'd known who yeh both were -- he's grown up knowin' both of yer names if his parents are wizardin' folk. You saw what everyone in the Leaky Cauldron was like when they saw yeh both. Anyway, what does he know about it, some o' the best I ever saw were the only ones with magic in 'em in a long line 0' Muggles -- look at yer mums! Look what they had fer sisters !" 

"So what is Quidditch?" Y/N asks 

"It's our sport. Wizard sport. It's like -- like soccer in the Muggle world -- everyone follows Quidditch -- played up in the air on broomsticks and there's four balls -- sorta hard ter explain the rules."   
"And what are Slytherin and Hufflepuff?" Harry asks.

"School houses. There's four. Everyone says Hufflepuff are a lot o' duffers, but --"

"I bet I'm in Hufflepuff" said Harry gloomily, Y/N nodding thinking the same thing.

"Better Hufflepuff than Slytherin," said Hagrid darkly. "There's not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin. You-Know-Who was one.”

"Vol-, sorry - You-Know-Who was at Hogwarts?" Y/N said

"Years an' years ago," said Hagrid. 

They bought Harry's and Y/N’s school books in a shop called Flourish and Blotts where the shelves were stacked to the ceiling with books as large as paving stones bound in leather; books the size of postage stamps in covers of silk; books full of peculiar symbols and a few books with nothing in them at all. Even Dudley and Mary , who never read anything, would have been wild to get their hands on some of these. Hagrid almost had to drag Harry and Y/N away from Curses and Countercurses (Bewitch Your Friends and Befuddle Your Enemies with the Latest Revenges: Hair Loss, Jelly-Legs, Tongue- Tying and Much, Much More) by Professor Vindictus Viridian.

"I was trying to find out how to curse Dudley."

“And I was trying to find out how to curse Mary”

"I'm not sayin' that's not a good idea, but yer not ter use magic in the Muggle world except in very special circumstances," said Hagrid. "An' anyway, yeh couldn' work any of them curses yet, yeh'll need a lot more study before yeh get ter that level."

Hagrid wouldn't let Harry or Y/N buy a solid gold cauldron, either ("It says pewter on yer list"), but they got a nice set of scales for weighing potion ingredients and a collapsible brass telescope. Then they visited the Apothecary, which was fascinating enough to make up for its horrible smell, a mixture of bad eggs and rotted cabbages. Barrels of slimy stuff stood on the floor; jars of herbs, dried roots, and bright powders lined the walls; bundles of feathers, strings of fangs, and snarled claws hung from the ceiling. While Hagrid asked the man behind the counter for a supply of some basic potion ingredients for Harry and Y/N, Harry and Y/N themselves examined silver unicorn horns at twenty-one Galleons each and minuscule, glittery-black beetle eyes (five Knuts a scoop).

Outside the Apothecary, Hagrid checked Harry's and Y/N’s list again.

"Just yer wand left - A yeah, an' I still haven't got either of yeh a birthday gift ."

Harry and Y/N felt themselves go red. 

"You don't have to --"

"I know I don't have to. Tell yeh what, I'll get yer animal. Not a toad, toads went outta fashion years ago, yeh'd be laughed at - an' I don' like cats, they make me sneeze. I'll get yer an owl. All the kids want owls, they're dead useful, carry yer mail an' everythin'."

Twenty minutes later, they left Eeylops Owl Emporium, which had been dark and full of rustling and flickering, jewel-bright eyes. Harry now carried a large cage that held a beautiful snowy owl, fast asleep with her head under her wing. Y/N now also carried a large cage that instead held a beautiful golden coloured barn owl, fast asleep with her head under her wing. Neither Harry nor Y/N could stop stammering their thanks, sounding just like Professor Quirrell.   


"Don' mention it," said Hagrid gruffly.

"Don' expect either of you to have had a lotta presents from them Dursley’s and Bell’s. Just Ollivanders left now - only place fer wands, Ollivanders, and yeh gotta have the best wand."

A magic wand... this was what Harry and Y/N had been really looking forward to.

The last shop was narrow and shabby. Peeling gold letters over the door read Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C. A single wand lay on a faded purple cushion in the dusty window.

A tinkling bell rang somewhere in the depths of the shop as they stepped inside. It was a tiny place, empty except for a single, spindly chair that Hagrid sat on to wait. Harry and Y/N felt strangely as though they had entered a very strict library; they swallowed a lot of new questions that had just occurred to them and looked instead at the thousands of narrow boxes piled neatly right up to the ceiling. For some reason, the back of their necks prickled. The very dust and silence in here seemed to tingle with some secret magic.

"Good afternoon," said a soft voice. Harry and Y/N jumped. Hagrid must have jumped, too, because there was a loud crunching noise and he got quickly off the spindly chair.

An old man was standing before them, his wide, pale eyes shining like moons through the gloom of the shop.

"Hello," Harry and Y/N said awkwardly together .

"Ah yes," said the man. "Yes, yes. I thought I'd be seeing you soon. Harry Potter and Y/N L/N." It wasn't a question. "You have your mother's eyes and you, Y/N, have your (mother’s/father’s) eyes . It seems only yesterday they were in here themselves , buying their first wands together . Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work,your mothers wand Harry, and Y/N’s mother had, eleven and a half inches long delicate, made of Cherri wood, good wand for transfiguration work."

Mr. Ollivander moved closer to Harry and Y/N. Harry and Y/N wished Mr. Ollivander would blink. Those silvery eyes were a bit creepy.

"Your father, Harry, on the other hand, favoured a mahogany wand. Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power and excellent for transfiguration. "Your father, Y/N,favoured a oak wand. Twelve inches. Pliable. A little more power and excellent for charms. Well, I say your fathers favored them-- it's really the wand that chooses the wizard, of course."

Mr. Ollivander had come so close that he was almost nose to nose Harry and Y/N. Harry and Y/N could see themselves reflected in those misty eyes.

"And that's where..."   
Mr. Ollivander touched the lightning scars on both their foreheads with two long, white fingers, one on each scar.

"I'm sorry to say I sold the wand that did it," he said softly. "Thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Powerful wand, very powerful, and in the wrong hands... well, if I'd known what that wand was going out into the world to do...."

He shook his head and then, to Harry's and Y/N’s relief, spotted Hagrid.

"Rubeus! Rubeus Hagrid! How nice to see you again.... Oak, sixteen inches, rather bendy, wasn't it?"

"It was, sir, yes," said Hagrid.

"Good wand, that one. But I suppose they snapped it in half when you got expelled?" said Mr. Ollivander, suddenly stern.

"Er -- yes, they did, yes," said Hagrid, shuffling his feet. "I've still got the pieces, though," he added brightly.

"But you don't use them?" said Mr. Ollivander sharply.

"Oh, no, sit," said Hagrid quickly. Harry and Y/N noticed he gripped his pink umbrella very tightly as he spoke.

"Hmmm," said Mr. Ollivander, giving Hagrid a piercing look. "Well, now -- Mr. Potter, Miss. L/N . Let me see." He pulled a long tape measure with silver markings out of his pocket. "Which is your wand arm?"

"Er -- well, I'm right-handed," said Harry.

“And I am (your dominant hand) handed” said Y/N

"Hold out your arm. That's it."

He measured Harry and Y/N from shoulder to finger, then wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit and round his head. As he measured, he said, "Every Ollivander wand has a core of a powerful magical substance, Mr. Potter and Miss Bernard. We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers, and the heartstrings of dragons. No two Ollivander wands are the same, just as no two unicorns, dragons, or phoenixes are quite the same. And of course, you will never get such good results with another wizard's wand."

Harry and Y/N suddenly realized that the tape measure, which was measuring between their nostrils, was doing this on its own. Mr. Ollivander was flitting around the shelves, taking down boxes.

"That will do," he said, and the tape measure crumpled into a heap on the floor.

"Right then, Mr. Potter. Try this one. Beechwood and dragon heartstring. Nine inches. Nice and flexible. Next, Miss. L/N . Try this one. Cherry wood and dragon heartstring. Six inches. Nice and fluttery. just take them and give them a wave."

Harry and Y/N took the wand presented to them and (feeling foolish) waved them around a bit, but Mr. Ollivander snatched them out of their hand almost at once.

"Maple and phoenix feather. Seven inches. Quite whippy. For Y/N, Maple and unicorn hair. Ten inches. Quite flexible. Try --"

Harry and Y/N tried -- but they had hardly raised the wands when they, too, were snatched back by Mr. Ollivander.

"No, no -here, ebony and unicorn hair, eight and a half inches, springy. Oak and Phoenix feather , seven and a half inches, slightly stiff. Go on, go on, try them out."

Harry and Y/N tried. And tried. They had no idea what Mr. Ollivander was waiting for. The pile of tried wands was mounting higher and higher on the spindly chair, but the more wands Mr. Ollivander pulled from the shelves, the happier he seemed to become.

"Tricky customers , eh? Not to worry, we'll find the perfect match here somewhere -- I wonder, now - - yes, why not -- unusual combination -- holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple,for Harry, and for Y/N a very unique wand, wood from a whomping willow tree and basilisk tooth infused with Phoenix feather core, ten inches, nice and elegant."

Harry and Y/N took the wands. They felt a sudden warmth in their fingers. They raised the wands above their heads, brought it swishing down through the dusty air and a stream of red and gold sparks shot from the end of Harry’s wand like a firework and a stream of red and white light shot from the end of Y/N’s wand like a curled around her like beautiful smoke, throwing dancing spots of light and smoke on to the walls. Hagrid whooped and clapped and Mr. Ollivander cried, "Oh, bravo! Yes, indeed, oh, very good. Well, well, well... how curious... how very curious... “

He put Harry's and Y/Ns wands back into their boxes and wrapped them in brown paper, still muttering, "Curious... curious..

"Sorry," said Harry, and Y/N tilting her head to the side wondering the same thing,"but what's curious?"

Mr. Ollivander fixed Harry and Y/N with his pale stare. 

"I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr. Potter and Miss. L/N . Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feathers that are in both your wand, gave another feather -- just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for these wands when its brother why, its brother gave you those scars.”

Harry and Y/N swallowed.

"Yes, thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember.... I think we must expect great things from you, both.... After all, He- Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things -- terrible, yes, but great."

Harry and Y/N shivered. They weren’t sure they liked Mr. Ollivander too much. They paid seven gold Galleons each for the wands , and Mr. Ollivander bowed them from his shop.

The late afternoon sun hung low in the sky as Harry, Y/N, and Hagrid made their way back down Diagon Alley, back through the wall, back through the Leaky Cauldron, now empty. Neither Harry nor Y/N spoke at all as they walked down the road; they didn't even notice how much people were gawking at them on the Underground, laden as they were with all their funny-shaped packages, with the snowy owl and barn asleep in their cages on Harry's and Y/N lap. Up another escalator, out into Paddington station; Harry and Y/N only realized where they were when Hagrid tapped him on the shoulder.

"Got time fer a bite to eat before yer train leaves," he said.

He bought Harry and Y/N hamburgers and they sat down on plastic seats to eat them. Harry and Y/N kept looking around. Everything looked so strange, somehow.

"You all right, Harry? Y/N? Yer very quiet," said Hagrid.

Neither Harry or Y/N were sure they could explain. Harry and Y/N just had the best birthday of their life -- and yet -- they chewed their hamburgers, trying to find the words.

"Everyone thinks we’re special," Y/N at last. "All those people in the Leaky Cauldron, Professor Quirrell, Mr. Ollivander... but we don't know anything about magic at all. How can they expect great things? We’re both famous and we can't even remember what we’re famous for. We don't know what happened when Vol-, sorry -- I mean, the night our parents died."

Hagrid leaned across the table. Behind the wild beard and eyebrows he wore a very kind smile.

"Don' you worry, Harry, you either Y/N. You'll learn fast enough. Everyone starts at the beginning at Hogwarts, you'll be just fine. just be yourselves. I know it's hard. Yeh've both been singled out, an' that's always hard. But yeh'll both have a great time at Hogwarts -- I did -- still do, 'smatter of fact."

Hagrid helped Harry and Y/N on to the train that would take them back to the Dursley’s and the the Bells, then handed them an envelope.

"Yer tickets fer Hogwarts, " he said. "First o' September -- King's Cross -- it's all on yer ticket. Any problems with the Dursley’s or the Bells, send me a letter with one of yer owls, they'll know where to find me.... See yeh soon, Harry and Y/N."

The train pulled out of the station. Harry and Y/N wanted to watch Hagrid until he was out of sight; they rose in their seats and pressed their noses against the window, but they blinked and Hagrid had gone.


	6. ~Year One~  ||Chapter Six|| The Journey From Platform Nine And Three-Quarters

Harry and Y/N’s last month with the Bells and Dursley’s wasn’t fun. True, Dudley and Mary were now so scared of Harry and Y/n that they wouldn't stay in the same room, while Aunt Petunia, aunt Brenda and Uncle Vernon and uncle Richard didn't shut Harry and Y/N in their cupboards, force them to do anything, or shout at them -- in fact, they didn't speak to them at all. Half terrified, half furious, they acted as though any chair with Harry or Y/N in it were empty. Although this was an improvement in many ways, it did become a bit depressing after a while.

Harry and Y/N kept to their rooms, with their new owls for company. Harry had decided to call his owl Hedwig, a name he had found in A History of Magic. Y/N called her owl Rowena, a name she also had found in A History of Magic. Their school books were very interesting. They both lay on their beds reading late into the night, Hedwig and Rowena swooping in and out of the open windows as they pleased. It was lucky that neither Aunt Petunia or Aunt Brenda hadn’t been coming in to vacuum anymore, because Hedwig and Rowena kept bringing back dead mice. Every night before they went to sleep, Harry and Y/N ticked off another day on the pieces of paper they had pinned to their walls, counting down to September the first.

On the last day of August they thought they better speak to their aunts and uncles about getting to King's Cross station when they we’re having dinner together the next day, so they went down to the Dursley’s living room where they were watching a quiz show on television. Harry cleared his throat to let them know he and Y/N were there, and Dudley and Mary screamed and ran from the room. 

"Er -- Uncle Vernon/uncle Richard?"Harry and Y/N said together 

Uncle Vernon and uncle Richard grunted to show they were listening. 

"Er -- We need to be at King's Cross tomorrow to -- to go to Hogwarts."

Uncle Vernon grunted again.

"Would it be all right if you gave me and Y/N a lift?"

Grunt. Harry and Y/N supposed that meant yes.

"Thank you."

Harry was was about to walk Y/N upstairs when Uncle Vernon actually spoke to uncle Richard.

"Funny way to get to a wizards' school, the train. Magic carpets all got punctures, have they?"

Neither Harry nor Y/N said say anything.

"Where is this school, anyway?"

"We don't know," said Harry and Y/N together, realizing this for the first time. They pulled their tickets Hagrid had given them out of their pockets.

"We just take the train from platform nine and three-quarters at eleven o'clock," harry read.

Their aunts and uncles stared.

"Platform what?"

"Nine and three-quarters." Y/N answered

"Don't talk rubbish," said Uncle Richard before Vernon could say anything. "There is no platform nine and three-quarters."

"It's on our tickets." Says Harry 

"Barking," said Uncle Vernon, "howling mad, the lot of them. The two you'll see. You both just wait. All right, we'll take you to King's Cross. We're all going up to London tomorrow anyway, or I wouldn't bother."

"Why are you going to London?" Harry asked, trying to keep things friendly.

"Taking Dudley and Mary to the hospital," growled Uncle Vernon. "Got to have that ruddy tail removed before he goes to Smeltings." 

“And before Mary goes to Persephone’s all girls school.” Uncle Richard cuts in.

Harry and Y/N woke at five o'clock the next morning and we’re both too excited and nervous to go back to sleep. Y/N got up and pulled on her jeans because she didn't want to walk into the station in her witches robes -- she'd change on the train. She checked her Hogwarts list yet again to make sure she had everything she needed, saw that Rowena was shut safely in her cage, and then paced the room, waiting for the bell’s to get up so they could head over to the Dursley’s. Two hours later, Harry's and Y/N’s and huge, heavy trunks had been loaded into the Dursleys' car, Aunt Petunia and Bren had talked Dudley and Mary into sitting next to Harry and Y/N, and they had set off.

They reached King's Cross at half past ten. Uncle Vernon and uncle Richard dumped Harry and Y/N’s trunks onto a cart and wheeled it into the station for them. Harry and Y/N thought this was strangely kind until Uncle Vernon and uncle Richard stopped dead, facing the platforms with a nasty grins on their faces.

"Well, there you are, kids. Platform nine -- platform ten. Your platform should be somewhere in the middle, but they don't seem to have built it yet, do they?"

He was quite right, of course. There was a big plastic number nine over one platform and a big plastic number ten over the one next to it, and in the middle, nothing at all.

"Have a good term," said Uncle Vernon and uncle Richard together with an even nastier smiles. They left without another word. Harry and Y/N turned and saw the Dursley’s and Bell’s drive away. All six of them were laughing. Harry's and Y/N’s mouths went rather dry. What on earth were they going to do? They were starting to attract a lot of funny looks, because of Hedwig and Rowena. They'd have to ask someone.

Harry and Y/N stopped a passing guard, but didn't dare mention platform nine and three-quarters. The guard had never heard of Hogwarts and when neither Harry or Y/N could even tell him what part of the country it was in, he started to get annoyed, as though both Harry and Y/N were being stupid on purpose. Getting desperate, Harry asked for the train that left at eleven o'clock, but the guard said there wasn't one. In the end the guard strode away, muttering about time wasters. Harry and Y/N were now trying hard not to panic.

According to the large clock over the arrivals board, they had ten minutes left to get on the train to Hogwarts and they had no idea how to do it; they were stranded in the middle of a station with trunks they could hardly lift,pockets full of wizard money, and two large owls.

Hagrid must have forgotten to tell them something you had to do, like tapping the third brick on the left to get into Diagon Alley. They wondered if they should get out their wands and start tapping the ticket inspector's stand between platforms nine and ten.

At that moment a group of people passed just behind Y/N and Harry and they caught a few words of what they were saying.

"-- packed with Muggles, of course --"   
Harry swung round Y/N follow suit. The speaker was a plump woman who was talking to four boys, all with flaming red hair. Each of them was pushing a trunk like Harry's and Y/N’s in front of him -- and they had an owl.

Hearts hammering, Harry and Y/N pushed their shared cart after them. They stopped and so did Y/N and Harry, just near enough to hear what they were saying.

"Now, what's the platform number?" said the boys' mother.

"Nine and three-quarters!" piped a small girl, also red-headed, who was holding her hand, "Mom, can't I go... "

"You're not old enough, Ginny, now be quiet. All right, Percy, you go first."

What looked like the oldest boy marched toward platforms nine and ten. Harry and Y/N watched, careful not to blink in case he missed it -- but just as the boy reached the dividing barrier between the two platforms, a large crowd of tourists came swarming in front of him and by the time the last backpack had cleared away, the boy had vanished.

"Fred, you next," the plump woman said.

"I'm not Fred, I'm George," said the boy.

"Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother? Cant you tell I'm George?"

"Sorry, George, dear."

"Only joking, I am Fred," said the boy, and off he went. His twin called after him to hurry up, and he must have done so, because a second later, he had gone -- but how had he done it?

Now the third brother was walking briskly toward the barrier he was almost there -- and then, quite suddenly, he wasn't anywhere.

There was nothing else for it.

"Excuse me," Harry and Y/N said to the plump woman.

"Hello, dears," she said. "First time at Hogwarts? Ron's new, too."

She pointed at the last and youngest of her sons. He was tall, thin, and gangling, with freckles, big hands and feet, and a long nose.

"Yes," said Harry. "The thing is -- the thing is, we don't know how to --"

"How to get onto the platform?" she said kindly, Harry and Y/N nodded.

"Not to worry," she said. "All you have to do is walk straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Don't stop and don't be scared either of you will crash into it, that's very important. Best do it at a bit of a run if you're both nervous. Go on, go now before Ron."

"Er -- okay," said Harry and Y/N.

They pushed their trolley around and stared at the barrier. It looked very solid.   
They started to walk toward it. People jostled them on their way to platforms nine and ten. Harry and Y/N walked more quickly. They were going to smash right into that barrier and then they'd be in trouble -- leaning forward on their cart, they broke into a heavy run -- the barrier was coming nearer and nearer -- they wouldn't be able to stop -- the cart was out of control -- they were a foot away -- they closed their eyes ready for the crash --

It didn't come... they kept on running... they opened their eyes. A scarlet steam engine was waiting next to a platform packed with people. A sign overhead said Hogwarts Express, eleven O'clock. Harry and Y/N looked behind them and saw a wrought-iron archway where the barrier had been, with the words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on it, they had done it.

Smoke from the engine drifted over the heads of the chattering crowd, while cats of every color wound here and there between their legs. Owls hooted to one another in a disgruntled sort of way over the babble and the scraping of heavy trunks.

The first few carriages were already packed with students, some hanging out of the window to talk to their families, some fighting over seats. Harry and Y/N pushed their cart off down the platform in search of an empty seat. They passed a round-faced boy who was saying, "Gran, I've lost my toad again."

"Oh, Neville," they heard the old woman sigh.

A boy with dreadlocks was surrounded by a small crowd.

"Give us a look, Lee, go on."

The boy lifted the lid of a box in his arms, and the people around him shrieked and yelled as something inside poked out a long, hairy leg.

Harry and Y/N pressed on through the crowd until they found an empty compartment near the end of the train. They put Hedwig and Rowena inside first and then started to shove and heave their trunks toward the train door. Harry and Y/N tried to lift them up the steps one at a time but could hardly raise one end and twice they dropped one of the trunks painfully on thier feet.

"Want a hand?" It was one of the red-haired twins he'd followed through the barrier.

"Yes, please," Harry and Y/N panted.

"Oy, Fred! C'mere and help!"

With the twins' help, Harry's and Y/N’s trunks ere at last tucked away in a corner of the compartment.

"Thanks," said Harry and Y/N, pushing their sweaty hair out of their eyes.

"What's that?" said one of the twins suddenly, pointing at Harry's and Y/N’s lightning scars.

"Blimey," said the other twin. "Are you two?”

"They are," said the first twin. "Aren't you?" he added to Harry and Y/N.

"What?" said Harry.

"Harry Potter and Y/N L/N, "chorused the twins.

"Oh, them," said Harry. "I mean, yes, we are."

The two boys gawked at him and Y/N, and Harry and Y/N felt themselves turning red. Then, to their relief, a voice came floating in through the train's open door.

"Fred? George? Are you there?"

"Coming, Mom."

With a last look at Harry and Y/N, the twins hopped off the train.

Harry and Y/N sat down on either side of the window where, half hidden, they could watch the red-haired family on the platform and hear what they were saying. Their mother had just taken out her handkerchief.

"Ron, you've got something on your nose." 

The youngest boy tried to jerk out of the way, but she grabbed him and began rubbing the end of his nose.

"Mom -- geroff" He wriggled free.

"Aaah, has ickle Ronnie got somefink on his nosie?" said one of the twins.

"Shut up," said Ron.

"Where's Percy?" said their mother. 

"He's coming now." 

The oldest boy came striding into sight. He had already changed into his billowing black Hogwarts robes, and Harry and Y/N noticed a shiny silver badge on his chest with the letter P on it.

"Can't stay long, Mother," he said. "I'm up front, the prefects have got two compartments to themselves --" 

"Oh, are you a prefect, Percy?" said one of the twins, with an air of great surprise. "You should have said something, we had no idea."

"Hang on, I think I remember him saying something about it," said the other twin. "Once --"   
"Or twice --"

"A minute --" 

"All summer --" 

"Oh, shut up," said Percy the Prefect.

"How come Percy gets new robes, anyway?" said one of the twins.

"Because he's a prefect," said their mother fondly. "All right, dear, well, have a good term -- send me an owl when you get there."

She kissed Percy on the cheek and he left. Then she turned to the twins.

"Now, you two -- this year, you behave yourselves. If I get one more owl telling me you've -- you've blown up a toilet or --"

"Blown up a toilet? We've never blown up a toilet."

"Great idea though, thanks, Mom." 

"It's not funny. And look after Ron." 

"Don't worry, ickle Ronniekins is safe with us."

"Shut up," said Ron again. He was almost as tall as the twins already and his nose was still pink where his mother had rubbed it.

"Hey, Mom, guess what? Guess who we just met on the train?"

Harry and Y/N both leaned back quickly so they couldn't see them looking.

"You know that black-haired boy and the H/C girl who was near us in the station? Know who they are?"

"Who?"

"Harry Potter and Y/N L/N!"

Harry and Y/N heard the little girl's voice.

"Oh, Mom, can I go on the train and see them, Mom, eh please...."

"You've already seen them, Ginny, and the poor kids aren’t something you goggle at in a zoo. Are they really, Fred? How do you know?"

"Asked them. Saw their scars. It's really there - like lightning."

"Poor dears - no wonder they were alone, I wondered. They were ever so polite when they asked how to get onto the platform."

"Never mind that, do you think they remember what You-Know-Who looks like?"

Their mother suddenly became very stern.   
"I forbid you to ask him, Fred. No, don't you dare. As though they bed reminding of that on their first day at school."

"All right, keep your hair on."

A whistle sounded.

"Hurry up!" their mother said, and the three boys clambered onto the train. They leaned out of the window for her to kiss them good-bye, and their younger sister began to cry.

"Don't, Ginny, we'll send you loads of owls."

"We'll send you a Hogwarts toilet seat."

"George!"

"Only joking, Mom." 

The train began to move. Harry and Y/N saw the boys' mother waving and their sister, half laughing, half crying, running to keep up with the train until it gathered too much speed, then she fell back and waved.

Harry and Y/N watched the girl and her mother disappear as the train rounded the corner. Houses flashed past the window. Harry and Y/N felt a great leap of excitement. They didn't know what they were going to but it had to be better than what they were leaving behind.

The door of the compartment slid open and the youngest redheaded boy came in.   
"Anyone sitting there?" he asked, pointing at the seat opposite Harry and beside Y/N.

"Everywhere else is full."

Harry and Y/N shook their heads and the boy sat down. He glanced at Harry and Y/N and then looked quickly out of the window, pretending he hadn't looked. Harry and Y/N saw he still had a black mark on his nose.

"Hey, Ron."

The twins were back.

"Listen, we're going down the middle of the train -- Lee Jordan's got a giant tarantula down there."

"Right," mumbled Ron.

"Harry, Y/N ," said the other twin, "did we introduce ourselves? Fred and George Weasley. And this is Ron, our brother. See you later, then.

"Bye," said Harry, Y/N and Ron. The twins slid the compartment door shut behind them.   
"Are you really Harry Potter?and are you really Y/N L/N" Ron blurted out.

Harry and Y/N nodded.

"Oh -well, I thought it might be one of Fred and George's jokes," said Ron. "And have you really got -- you know..."

He pointed at Harry's and Y/N’s forehead.   
Harry and Y/N pulled back their bangs to show the lightning scars. Ron stared.

"So that's where You-Know-Who   
"Yes," said Harry and Y/N together, "but I can't remember it."

"Nothing?" said Ron eagerly.

"Well -- We both remember a lot of green light, but nothing else.”

"Wow," said Ron. He sat and stared at Harry Y/N for a few moments, then, as though he had suddenly realized what he was doing, he looked quickly out of the window again.

"Are all your family wizards?" asked Harry, who found Ron just as interesting as Ron found him and Y/N.

"Er -- Yes, I think so," said Ron. "I think Mom's got a second cousin who's an accountant, but we never talk about him."

"So you must know loads of magic already."

The Weasleys were clearly one of those old wizarding families the pale boy in Diagon Alley had talked about.

"I heard you two went to live with Muggles," said Ron. "What are they like?"

"Horrible -well, not all of them. Mine and Y/N aunts, uncles and cousins are, though. We both wish we had three wizard brothers."

"Five," said Ron. For some reason, he was looking gloomy. "I'm the sixth in our family to go to Hogwarts. You both could say I've got a lot to live up to. Bill and Charlie have already left -- Bill was head boy and Charlie was captain of Quidditch. Now Percy's a prefect. Fred and George mess around a lot, but they still get really good marks and everyone thinks they're really funny. Everyone expects me to do as well as the others, but if I do, it's no big deal, because they did it first. You never get anything new, either, with five brothers. I've got Bill's old robes, Charlie's old wand, and Percy's old rat."

Ron reached inside his jacket and pulled out a fat gray rat, which was asleep.

"His name's Scabbers and he's useless, he hardly ever wakes up. Percy got an owl from my dad for being made a prefect, but they couldn't aff -- I mean, I got Scabbers instead." 

Ron's ears went pink. He seemed to think he'd said too much, because he went back to staring out of the window.

Neither Harry nor Y/N thought there was anything wrong with not being able to afford an owl. After all, they'd never had any money in their lives until a month ago, and they both told Ron so, all about having to wear Dudley's and Mary’s old clothes and never getting proper birthday presents. This seemed to cheer Ron up.

"... and until Hagrid told us, We didn't know anything about being a wizard or about our parents or-“.

“Voldemort" Y/N and Harry said together.

Ron gasped.

"What?" said Harry.

"You both said You-Know-Who's name!" said Ron, sounding both shocked and impressed. "I'd have thought you two, of all people --"

"We’re not trying to be brave or anything, saying the name," said Harry, ” we just never knew you shouldn't. See what we mean? We’ve got loads to learn.... I bet," Y/N added, voicing for the first time something that had been worrying them both a lot lately, "I bet I'm the worst in the class ." Y/N said together and looking at each other in surprise.

"You won't be. There's loads of people who come from Muggle families and they learn quick enough."

While they had been talking, the train had carried them out of London. Now they were speeding past fields full of cows and sheep. They were quiet for a time, watching the fields and lanes flick past.   
Around half past twelve there was a great clattering outside in the corridor and a smiling, dimpled woman slid back their door and said, "Anything off the cart, dears?"   
Harry and Y/N , who both hadn't had any breakfast, leapt to their feet, but Ron's ears went pink again and he muttered that he'd brought sandwiches. Harry and Y/N went out into the corridor.

They had never had any money for candy with the Bells and Dursleys, and now that they both had pockets rattling with gold and silver they were ready to buy as many Mars Bars as they could carry -- but the woman didn't have Mars Bars. What she did have were Bettie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, Chocolate Frogs. Pumpkin Pasties, Cauldron Cakes, Licorice Wands, and a number of other strange things neither Harry nor Y/N had ever seen in their lives. Not wanting to miss anything, they got some of everything and they both paid the woman eleven silver Sickles and seven bronze Knuts .

Ron stared as Harry and Y/N brought it all back in to the compartment and tipped it onto an empty seat.

"Hungry, are you?"

"Starving," said Harry and Y/N, both taking a large bite out of pumpkin pasty’s .

Ron had taken out a lumpy package and unwrapped it. There were four sandwiches inside. He pulled one of them apart and said, "She always forgets I don't like corned beef."

"Swap you for one of these," said Harry, holding up a pasty. "Go on --"

"You don't want this, it's all dry," said Ron. "She hasn't got much time," he added quickly, "you know, with five of us."

"Go on, have a pasty," said Harry and Y/N, who had never had anything to share before or, indeed, anyone to share it with other than with each other. It was a nice feeling, sitting there with Ron, eating their way through all Harry's and Y/N’s pasties, cakes, and candies (the sandwiches lay forgotten).

"What are these?" Harry and Y/N asked Ron, both of them holding up a pack of Chocolate Frogs. "They're not really frogs, are they?" They were starting to feel that nothing would surprise them.

"No," said Ron. "But see what the card is. I'm missing Agrippa."

"What?"

"Oh, of course, you wouldn't know -- Chocolate Frogs have cards, inside them, you know, to collect -- famous witches and wizards. I've got about five hundred, but I haven't got Agrippa or Ptolemy."

Harry and Y/N unwrapped their Chocolate Frogs and picked up the cards. Both cards showed a man's face. He wore half- moon glasses, had a long, crooked nose, and flowing silver hair, beard, and mustache. Underneath the picture was the name Albus Dumbledore.

"So this is Dumbledore!" said Harry and Y/N.   
"Don't tell me you'd never heard of Dumbledore!" said Ron. "Can I have a frog? I might get Agrippa -- thanks

Harry and Y/N turned over their cards sand read: 

ALBUS DUMBLEDORE

CURRENTLY HEADMASTER OF HOGWARTS 

Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times, Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel. Professor Dumbledore enjoys chamber music and tenpin bowling.

Harry and Y/N turned the cards back over and saw, to their astonishment, that Dumbledore's face had disappeared.   
  
"He's gone!” Said Y/N

"Well, you can't expect him to hang around all day," said Ron. "He'll be back. No, I've got Morgana again and I've got about six of her... do either of you want it? You can start collecting."

Ron's eyes strayed to the pile of Chocolate Frogs waiting to be unwrapped.   
"Help yourself," said Harry. "But in, you know, the Muggle world, people just stay put in photos." Y/N continued for Harry 

"Do they? What, they don't move at all?" Ron sounded amazed. "weird!"

Harry and Y/N stared as Dumbledore sidled back into the picture on their cards and gave them both a small smile. Ron was more interested in eating the frogs than looking at the Famous Witches and Wizards cards, but Harry and Y/N couldn't keep their eyes off them. Soon they had not only Dumbledore and Morgana, but Hengist of Woodcroft, Alberic Grunnion, Circe, Paracelsus, and Merlin. They finally tore their eyes away from the druidess Cliodna, who was scratching her nose, to open a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.

"You want to be careful with those," Ron warned Harry and Y/N. "When they say every flavor, they mean every flavor -- you know, you get all the ordinary ones like chocolate and peppermint and mar- malade, but then you can get spinach and liver and tripe. George reckons he had a booger- flavored one once."

Ron picked up a green bean, looked at it carefully, and bit into a corner.

"Bleaaargh -- see? Sprouts."

Harry and Ron had a good time eating the Every Flavor Beans, while Y/N sat and watched laughing when they got an awful flavour like onions. Harry got toast, coconut, baked bean, strawberry, curry, grass, coffee, sardine, and was even brave enough to nibble the end off a funny gray one Ron wouldn't touch, which turned out to be pepper.

The countryside now flying past the window was becoming wilder. The neat fields had gone. Now there were woods, twisting rivers, and dark green hills.

There was a knock on the door of their compartment and the round-faced boy Harry and Y/N had passed on platform nine and threequarters came in. He looked tearful.

"Sorry," he said, "but have you seen a toad at all?"

When they shook their heads, he wailed, "I've lost him! He keeps getting away from me!" 

"He'll turn up," said Harry.

"Yes," said the boy miserably. "Well, if you see him..." 

He left.

"Don't know why he's so bothered," said Ron. "If I'd brought a toad I'd lose it as quick as I could. Mind you, I brought Scabbers, so I can't talk." 

The rat was still snoozing on Ron's lap.

"He might have died and you wouldn't know the difference," said Ron in disgust. "I tried to turn him yellow yesterday to make him more interesting, but the spell didn't work. I'll show you, look..."

He rummaged around in his trunk and pulled out a very battered-looking wand. It was chipped in places and something white was glinting at the end.

"Unicorn hair's nearly poking out. Anyway   
He had just raised his 'wand when the compartment door slid open again. The toadless boy was back, but this time he had a girl with him. She was already wearing her new Hogwarts robes.

"Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one," she said. She had a bossy sort of voice, lots of bushy brown hair, and rather large front teeth.

"We've already told him we haven't seen it," said Ron, but the girl wasn't listening, she was looking at the wand in his hand.

"Oh, are you doing magic? Let's see it, then."

She sat down. Ron looked taken aback.

"Er -- all right."

He cleared his throat.

"Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow, Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow."

He waved his wand, but nothing happened. Scabbers stayed gray and fast asleep.

"Are you sure that's a real spell?" said the girl. "Well, it's not very good, is it? I've tried a few simple spells just for practice and it's all worked for me. Nobody in my family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard -- I've learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough -- I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?”

She said all this very fast.

Harry looked at Ron, and was relieved to see by his stunned face that he hadn't learned all the course books by heart either,but was disheartened when Y/N nodded saying that she had done some reading as well.

"I'm Ron Weasley," Ron muttered.

"Harry Potter," said Harry.

“Y/N L/N” said Y/N

"Are you really?" said Hermione. "I know all about you two, of course -- I got a few extra books. for background reading, and you're both in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century.”

"Am I?" said Harry and Y/N, feeling dazed.

"Goodness, didn't either you know, I'd have found out everything I could if it was me," said Hermione. "Do any of you know what house you'll be in? I've been asking around, and I hope I'm in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best; I hear Dumbledore himself was in it, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad.... Anyway, we'd better go and look for Neville's toad. You two had better change and You two should step out and let Y/N change when your done, you know, I expect we'll be there soon."

And she left, taking the toadless boy with her.

"Whatever house I'm in, I hope she's not in it," said Ron. He threw his wand back into his trunk. "Stupid spell -- George gave it to me, bet he knew it was a dud."

"What house are your brothers in?" asked Harry.

"Gryffindor," said Ron. Gloom seemed to be settling on him again. "Mom and Dad were in it, too. I don't know what they'll say if I'm not. I don't suppose Ravenclaw would be too bad, but imagine if they put me in Slytherin."

"That's the house Vol-, I mean, You-Know-Who was in?" Y/N asked.

"Yeah," said Ron. He flopped back into his seat, looking depressed.

"You know, I think the ends of Scabbers' whiskers are a bit lighter," said Harry, trying to take Ron's mind off houses. "So what do your oldest brothers do now that they've left, anyway?" Y/N asked

Harry and Y/N were wondering what a wizard did once they'd finished school.

"Charlie's in Romania studying dragons, and Bill's in Africa doing something for Gringotts," said Ron. "Did you hear about   
Gringotts? It's been all over the Daily Prophet, but I don't suppose you get that with the Muggles -- someone tried to rob a high security vault."

Harry and Y/N stared.

"Really? What happened to them?"

"Nothing, that's why it's such big news. They haven't been caught. My dad says it must've been a powerful Dark wizard to get round Gringotts, but they don't think they took anything, that's what's odd. 'Course, everyone gets scared when something like this happens in case You-Know-Who's behind it."

Harry and Y/N turned this news over in their minds. They were starting to get a prickle of fear every time You- Know-Who was mentioned. They supposed this was all part of entering the magical world, but it had been a lot more comfortable saying "Voldemort" without worrying.

"What's your Quidditch teams?" Ron asked.

"Er -- We don't know any," Harry confessed.

"What!" Ron looked dumbfounded. "Oh, you wait, it's the best game in the world --" And he was off, explaining all about the four balls and the positions of the seven players, describing famous games he'd been to with his brothers and the broomstick he'd like to get if he had the money. He was just taking Harry and Y/N through the finer points of the game when the compartment door slid open yet again, but it wasn't Neville the toadless boy, or Hermione Granger this time.

Three boys entered, and Harry as-well as Y/N recognized the middle one at once: it was the pale boy from Madam Malkin's robe shop.

He was looking at Harry and Y/N with a lot more interest than he'd shown back in Diagon Alley.

"Is it true?" he said. "They're saying all down the train that Harry Potter and Y/N are in this compartment. So it's you two, is it?"

"Yes," said Harry and Y/N together . They were looking at the other boys. Both of them were thickset and looked extremely mean. Standing on either side of the pale boy, they looked like bodyguards.

"Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle," said the pale boy carelessly, noticing where Harry and Y/N were looking. "And my name's Malfoy, Draco Malfoy."

Ron gave a slight cough, which might have been hiding a snigget. Draco Malfoy looked at him.

"Think my name's funny, do you? No need to ask who you are. My father told me all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford."

He turned back to Harry and Y/N. "You'll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others, Potter and L/N. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you both there."

He held out his hand to shake Harry's and Y/N’s, but Harry and Y/N both didn't take it.

"I think we can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks," Harry said coolly.

Draco Malfoy didn't go red, but a pink tinge appeared in his pale cheeks.

"I'd be careful if I were you, Potter, you too L/N" he said slowly. "Unless you're a bit politer you'll both go the same way as your parents. They didn't know what was good for them, either. You hang around with riffraff like the Weasleys and that Hagrid, and it'll rub off on you."

Both Harry,Ron and Y/N stood up.

"Say that again," Ron said, his face as red as his hair.

"Oh, you're going to fight us, are you?" Malfoy sneered.

"Unless you get out now," said Harry, more bravely than he felt, because Crabbe and Goyle were a lot bigger than him or Y/N or Ron.

"But we don't feel like leaving, do we, boys? We've eaten all our food and you still seem to have some."

Goyle reached toward the Chocolate Frogs next to Ron - Ron leapt forward, but before he'd so much as touched Goyle, Goyle let out a horrible yell.

Scabbers the rat was hanging off his finger, sharp little teeth sunk deep into Goyle's knuckle - Crabbe and Malfoy backed away as Goyle swung Scabbers round and round, howling, and when Scabbets finally flew off and hit the window, all three of them disappeared at once. Perhaps they thought there were more rats lurking among the sweets, or perhaps they'd heard footsteps, because a second later, Hermione Granger had come in. 

"What has been going on?" she said, looking at the sweets all over the floor and Ron picking up Scabbers by his tail.

I think he's been knocked out," Ron said to Harry and Y/N. He looked closer at Scabbers. "No -- I don't believe it -- he's gone back to sleep-"

And so he had.

"You've met Malfoy before?"

Harry and Y/N explained about their meeting in Diagon Alley.

"I've heard of his family," said Ron darkly. "They were some of the first to come back to our side after You-Know-Who disappeared. Said they'd been bewitched. My dad doesn't believe it. He says Malfoy's father didn't need an excuse to go over to the Dark Side." He turned to Hermione. "Can we help you with something?"

"You'd better hurry up and put your robes on, I've just been up to the front to ask the conductor, and he says we're nearly there. You haven't been fighting, have you? You'll be in trouble before we even get there!"

"Scabbers has been fighting, not us," said Ron, scowling at her. "Would you mind leaving while we change?"

"All right -- I only came in here because people outside are behaving very childishly, racing up and down the corridors," said Hermione in a sniffy voice. "And you've got dirt on your nose, by the way, did you know?"

Ron glared at her as she left. Harry and Y/N peered out of the window. It was getting dark. They could see mountains and forests under a deep purple sky. The train did seem to be slowing down.

Y/N stepped out while Harry and Ron took off their jackets and pulled on their long black robes. Ron's were a bit short for him, you could see his sneakers underneath them. Y/N then came back in while the boys waited outside so  
She could get dressed, she pulled on her long black robes and told the boys they could come back in.

A voice echoed through the train: "We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately."

Harry's and Y/and stomach lurched with nerves and Ron, he saw, looked pale under his freckles. They crammed their pockets with the last of the sweets and joined the crowd thronging the corridor.

The train slowed right down and finally stopped. People pushed their way toward the door and out on to a tiny, dark platform. Harry shivered in the cold night air. Then a lamp came bobbing over the heads of the students, and Harry heard a familiar voice: "Firs' years! Firs' years over here! All right there, Harry, y/N?" 

Hagrid's big hairy face beamed over the sea of heads. 

"C'mon, follow me -- any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!"

Slipping and stumbling, they followed Hagrid down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. It was so dark on either side of them that Harry and Y/N thought there must be thick trees there. Nobody spoke much. Neville, the boy who kept losing his toad, sniffed once or twice. 

"Ye' all get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid called over his shoulder, "jus' round this bend here."

There was a loud "Oooooh!"

The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black take. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.

"No more'n five to a boat!" Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. Harry, Ron and Y/N were followed into their boat by Neville and Hermione. "Everyone in?" shouted Hagrid, who had a boat to himself. "Right then -- FORWARD!"

And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.

"Heads down!" yelled Hagrid as the first boats reached the cliff; they all bent their heads and the little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face. They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbor, where they clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.

"Oy, you there! Is this your toad?" said Hagrid, who was checking the boats as people climbed out of them.

"Trevor!" cried Neville blissfully, holding out his hands. Then they clambered up a passageway in the rock after Hagrid's lamp, coming out at last onto smooth, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle.

They walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around the huge, Oak front door.

"Everyone here? You there, still got yer toad?"

Hagrid raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door.


	7. ~Year One~ ||Chapter Seven|| The Sorting Hat

The door swung open at once. A tall, black-haired witch in emerald-green robes stood there. She had a very stern face and Harry's as well as Y/N's first thought was that this was not someone to cross.

"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," said Hagrid.

"Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here."

She pulled the door wide. The entrance hall was so big you could have fit the whole of the Dursleys' and Bell's houses in it. The stone walls were lit with flaming torches like the ones at Gringotts, the ceiling was too high to make out, and a magnificent marble staircase facing them led to the upper floors.

They followed Professor McGonagall across the flagged stone floor. Harry and Y/N could hear the drone of hundreds of voices from a doorway to the right -the rest of the school must already be here -- but Professor McGonagall showed the first years into a small, empty chamber off the hall. They crowded in, standing rather closer together than they would usually have done, peering about nervously.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," said Professor McGonagall. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room.

"The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rulebreaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the house cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours.

"The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting."

Her eyes lingered for a moment on Neville's cloak, which was fastened under his left ear, and on Ron's smudged nose. Harry nervously tried to flatten his hair while Y/N tucked her hair behind her ears.*

"I shall return when we are ready for you," said Professor McGonagall. "Please wait quietly."

She left the chamber. Harry and Y/N swallowed.

"How exactly do they sort us into houses?" he asked Ron.

"Some sort of test, I think. Fred said it hurts a lot, but I think he was joking."

Harry's and Y/N's hearts gave a horrible jolt. A test? In front of the whole school? But they didn't know any magic yet -- what on earth would he have to do? He hadn't expected something like this the moment they arrived. Harry and Y/N both looked around anxiously and saw that everyone else looked terrified, too. No one was talking much except Hermione Granger, who was whispering very fast about all the spells she'd learned and wondering which one she'd need. Harry and Y/N tried hard not to listen to her. They'd never been more nervous, never, not even when they had to take a school report home to the Dursleys and the bell's saying that they'd somehow turned their teacher's wig blue. They kept their eyes fixed on the door. Any second now, Professor McGonagall would come back and lead the two to their doom.

Then something happened that made them jump about a foot in the air -- several people behind him screamed.

"What the --?"

Harry and Y/N gasped. So did the people around him. About twenty ghosts had just streamed through the back wall. Pearly-white and slightly transparent, they glided across the room talking to one another and hardly glancing at the first years. They seemed to be arguing. What looked like a fat little monk was saying: "Forgive and forget, I say, we ought to give him a second chance --"

"My dear Friar, haven't we given Peeves all the chances he deserves? He gives us all a bad name and you know, he's not really even a ghost -- I say, what are you all doing here?"

A ghost wearing a ruff and tights had suddenly noticed the first years.

Nobody answered.

"New students!" said the Fat Friar, smiling around at them. "About to be Sorted, I suppose?"

A few people nodded mutely.

"Hope to see you in Hufflepuff!" said the Friar. "My old house, you know."

"Move along now," said a sharp voice.

"The Sorting Ceremony's about to start."

Professor McGonagall had returned. One by one, the ghosts floated away through the opposite wall.

"Now, form a line," Professor McGonagall told the first years, "and follow me."

Feeling odd as though Their legs had turned to lead, Harry and Y/N got into line behind a boy with sandy hair, with Ron behind them, and they walked out of the chamber, back across the hall, and through a pair of double doors into the Great Hall.

Harry and Y/N had never even imagined such a strange and splendid place. It was lit by thousands and thousands of candles that were floating in midair over four long tables, where the rest of the students were sitting. These tables were laid with glittering golden plates and goblets. At the top of the hall was another long table where the teachers were sitting. Professor McGonagall led the first years up here so that they came to a halt in a line facing the other students, with the teachers behind them. The hundreds of faces staring at them looked like pale lanterns in the flickering candlelight. Dotted here and there among the students, the ghosts shone misty silver. Mainly to avoid all the staring eyes, Harry and Y/N looked upward and saw a velvety black ceiling dotted with stars. They heard Hermione whisper, "It's bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in Hogwarts, A History."

It was hard to believe there was a ceiling there at all, and that the Great Hall didn't simply open on to the heavens.

Harry and Y/N both quickly looked down again as Professor McGonagall silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first years. On top of the stool, she put a pointed wizard's hat. This hat was patched and frayed and extremely dirty. Neither Aunt Petunia nor aunt Brenda would have let it in the house.

Maybe they had to try and get a rabbit out of it, Harry and Y/N thought wildly, that seemed the sort of thing -- noticing that everyone in the hall was now staring at the hat, they both stared at it, too. For a few seconds, there was complete silence. Then the hat twitched. A rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth -- and the hat began to sing:

"Oh, you may not think I'm pretty,   
But don't judge on what you see,   
I'll eat myself if you can find   
A smarter hat than me.   
You can keep your bowlers black,   
Your top hats sleek and tall,   
For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat   
And I can cap them all.   
There's nothing hidden in your head   
The Sorting Hat can't see,   
So try me on and I will tell you   
Where you ought to be.   
You might belong in Gryffindor,   
Where dwell the brave at heart,   
Their daring, nerve, and chivalry Set Gryffindors apart;   
You might belong in Hufflepuff,   
Where they are just and loyal,   
Those patient Hufflepuffis are true And unafraid of toil;   
Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,   
if you have a ready mind,   
Where those of wit and learning,   
Will always find their kind;   
Or perhaps in Slytherin   
You'll make your real friends,   
Those cunning folk use any means   
To achieve their ends.   
So put me on! Don't be afraid!   
And don't get in a flap!   
You're in safe hands (though I have none)   
For I'm a Thinking Cap!"

The whole hall burst into applause as the hat finished its song. It bowed to each of the four tables and then became quite still again.

"So we've just got to try on the hat!" Ron whispered to Harry and Y/N. "I'll kill Fred, he was going on about wrestling a troll."

Harry and Y/N. smiled weakly. Yes, trying on the hat was a lot better than having to do a spell, but they did wish they could have tried it on without everyone watching. The hat seemed to be asking rather a lot; neither Harry nor Y/N felt brave or quick-witted or any of it at the moment. If only the hat had mentioned a house for people who felt a bit queasy, that would have been the one for him.

Professor McGonagall now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.

"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," she said. "Abbott, Hannah!"

A pink-faced girl with blonde pigtails stumbled out of line, put on the hat, which fell right down over her eyes, and sat down. A moment's pause -- "HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat.

The table on the right cheered and clapped as Hannah went to sit down at the Hufflepuff table. Harry and Y/N saw the ghost of the Fat Friar waving merrily at her.

"Bones, Susan!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat again, and Susan scuttled off to sit next to Hannah.

"Boot, Terry!"

"RAVENCLAW!"

The table second from the left clapped this time; several Ravenclaws stood up to shake hands with Terry as he joined them.

" Brocklehurst, Mandy" went to Ravenclaw too, but "Brown, Lavender" became the first new Gryffindor, and the table on the far left exploded with cheers; Harry and Y/N could see Ron's twin brothers catcalling.

"Bulstrode, Millicent" then became a Slytherin. Perhaps it was Harry's and Y/N's imagination, after all, they'd heard about Slytherin, but they thought they looked like an unpleasant lot. They were both starting to feel definitely sick now. They remembered being picked for teams during gym at their old school. They had always been last to be chosen, not because they were no good, but because no one wanted Dudley and Mary to think they liked the two of them.

"Finch-Fletchley, Justin!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

Sometimes, Harry and Y/N noticed, the hat shouted out the house at once, but at others, it took a little while to decide. "Finnigan, Seamus," the sandy-haired boy next to Harry and Y/N in the line, sat on the stool for almost a whole minute before the hat declared him a Gryffindor.

"Granger, Hermione!"

Hermione almost ran to the stool and jammed the hat eagerly on her head.

"GRYFFINDOR!" shouted the hat. Ron groaned.

A horrible thought struck Harry and Y/N, as horrible thoughts always do when you're very nervous. What if they weren't chosen at all? What if they just sat there with the hat over their eyes for ages, until Professor McGonagall jerked it off their heads and said there had obviously been a mistake and they'd better get back on the train?

When Neville Longbottom, the boy who kept losing his toad, was called, he fell over on his way to the stool. The hat took a long time to decide with Neville. When it finally shouted, "GRYFFINDOR," Neville ran off still wearing it, and had to jog back amid gales of laughter to give it to "MacDougal, Morag."

Malfoy swaggered forward when his name was called and got his wish at once: the hat had barely touched his head when it screamed, "SLYTHERIN!"

Malfoy went to join his friends Crabbe and Goyle, looking pleased with himself.

There weren't many people left now. "Moon" "Nott" "Parkinson" then a pair of twin girls, "Patil" and "Patil" then "Perks, Sally-Anne" and then, at last -- "Potter, Harry!"

As Harry stepped forward, whispers suddenly broke out like little hissing fires all over the hall.

"Potter, did she say?"

"The Harry Potter?"

The last thing Harry saw before the hat dropped over his eyes was the hall full of people craning to get a good look at him and Y/N mouthing good luck while waiting to get called. Next second he was looking at the black inside of the hat. He waited.

Hmm," said a small voice in his ear. "Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There's talent, A my goodness, yes -- and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that's interesting... So where shall I put you?"

Harry gripped the edges of the stool and thought, Not Slytherin, not Slytherin.

"Not Slytherin, eh?" said the small voice. "Are you sure? You could be great, you know, it's all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that -- no? Well, if you're sure -- better be GRYFFINDOR!"

Harry heard the hat shout the last word to the whole hall. He took off the hat and walked shakily toward the Gryffindor table and waits for Y/N to get sorted into her house.

at last -- "L/N, Y/N!"

Just like Harry, as Y/N stepped forward, whispers suddenly broke out like little hissing fires all over the hall.

"L/N, did she say?"

"The L/N Y/N?"

The last thing Y/N saw before the hat dropped over her eyes was the hall full of people craning to get a good look at him and Harry mouthing good luck while sitting at the Gryffindor table. Next second she was looking at the black inside of the hat. She waited.

Hmm," said a small voice in her ear. "Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There's talent, A my goodness, yes -- and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that's interesting... So where shall I put you?"

Y/N gripped the edges of the stool and thought, Not Slytherin, not Slytherin.

"Not Slytherin, eh?" said the small voice. "Are you sure? You could be great, you know, it's all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that -- no? Well, if you're sure -- better be GRYFFINDOR!"

Y/N took off the hat and walked shakily toward the Gryffindor table and shakily smiles at Harry.

Harry and Y/N were both so relieved to have been chosen and not put in Slytherin, they hardly noticed that they were getting the loudest cheer yet. Percy the Prefect got up and shook his hand vigorously, while the Weasley twins yelled, "We got Potter and L/N! We got Potter and L/N!" Harry had sat down opposite the ghost in the ruff he'd seen earlier and Y/N sat beside Harry. The ghost patted Harry's and Y/N's arm, giving them both the sudden, horrible feeling they'd just plunged it into a bucket of ice-cold water.

Harry and Y/N could see the High Table properly now. At the end nearest to them sat Hagrid, who caught their eyes and gave them the thumbs up. Harry and Y/N both grinned back. And there, in the center of the High Table, in a large gold chair, sat Albus Dumbledore. Harry and Y/N recognized him at once from the card they'd gotten out of the Chocolate Frogs on the train. Dumbledore's silver hair was the only thing in the whole hall that shone as brightly as the ghosts. Harry and Y/N both spotted Professor Quirrell, too, the nervous young man from the Leaky Cauldron. He was looking very peculiar in a large purple turban.

And now there were only three people left to be sorted. "Thomas, Dean," a Black boy even taller than Ron, joined Harry and Y/N at the Gryffindor table. "Turpin, Lisa," became a Ravenclaw, and then it was Ron's turn. He was pale green by now. Harry and Y/N both crossed their fingers under the table and a second later the hat had shouted, "GRYFFINDOR!"

Harry and Y/N clapped loudly with the rest as Ron collapsed into the chair next to him.   
"Well done, Ron, excellent," said Percy Weasley Pompously across Harry and Y/N as "Zabini, Blaise," was made a Slytherin. Professor McGonagall rolled up her scroll and took the Sorting Hat away.

Harry and Y/N looked down at their empty gold plates. They had only just realized how hungry they were. The pumpkin pasties seemed ages ago.

Albus Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. He was beaming at the students, his arms opened wide as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all there.

"Welcome," he said. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!

"Thank you!"

He sat back down. Everybody clapped and cheered. Neither Harry nor Y/N knew whether to laugh or not.

"Is he -- a bit mad?" he asked Percy uncertainly.

"Mad?" said Percy airily. "He's a genius! Best wizard in the world! But he is a bit mad, yes. Potatoes, Harry, Y/N?"

Harry's and Y/N's mouths fell open. The dishes in front of them were now piled with food. They had never seen so many things he liked to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and, for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs.

Neither the Dursleys nor the bells had ever exactly starved Harry or Y/N, but they'd never been allowed to eat as much as they liked. Dudley and Mary had always taken anything that Harry and Y/N really wanted, even if It made them sick. Harry and Y/N piled their plates with a bit of everything except the peppermints and began to eat. It was all delicious.

"That does look good," said the ghost in the ruff sadly, watching Harry and Y/N cut up their steak,

"Can't you --?"

"I haven't eaten for nearly four hundred years," said the ghost. "I don't need to, of course, but one does miss it. I don't think I've introduced myself? Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington at your service. Resident ghost of Gryffindor Tower."

"I know who you are!" said Ron suddenly. "My brothers told me about you -- you're Nearly Headless Nick!"

"I would prefer you to call me Sir Nicholas de Mimsy --" the ghost began stiffly, but sandy-haired Seamus Finnigan interrupted.

"Nearly Headless? How can you be nearly headless?"

Sir Nicholas looked extremely miffed, as if their little chat wasn't going at all the way he wanted.

"Like this," he said irritably. He seized his left ear and pulled. His whole head swung off his neck and fell onto his shoulder as if it was on a hinge. Someone had obviously tried to behead him, but not done it properly. Looking pleased with the stunned looks on their faces, Nearly Headless Nick flipped his head back onto his neck, coughed, and said, "So -- new Gryffindors! I hope you're going to help us win the house championship this year? Gryffindors have never gone so long without winning. Slytherins have got the cup six years in a row! The Bloody Baron's becoming almost unbearable -- he's the Slytherin ghost."

Harry and Y/N looked over at the Slytherin table and saw a horrible ghost sitting there, with blank staring eyes, a gaunt face, and robes stained with silver blood. He was right next to Malfoy who, both Y/N and Harry were pleased to see, didn't look too pleased with the seating arrangements.

"How did he get covered in blood?" asked Seamus with great interest.

"I've never asked," said Nearly Headless Nick delicately.

When everyone had eaten as much as they could, the remains of the food faded from the plates, leaving them sparkling clean as before. A moment later the desserts appeared. Blocks of ice cream in every flavor you could think of, apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate eclairs, and jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, Jell-O, rice pudding -- " 

As Harry helped himself to a treacle tart and y/n helped herself to F/D, the talk turned to their families.

"I'm half-and-half," said Seamus. "Me dad's a Muggle. Mom didn't tell him she was a witch 'til after they were married. Bit of a nasty shock for him."

The others laughed.

"What about you, Neville?" said Ron.

"Well, my gran brought me up and she's a witch," said Neville, "but the family thought I was all- Muggle for ages. My Great Uncle Algie kept trying to catch me off my guard and force some magic out of me -- he pushed me off the end of Blackpool pier once, I nearly drowned -- but nothing happened until I was eight. Great Uncle Algie came round for dinner, and he was hanging me out of an upstairs window by the ankles when my Great Auntie Enid offered him a meringue and he accidentally let go. But I bounced -- all the way down the garden and into the road. They were all really pleased, Gran was crying, she was so happy. And you should have seen their faces when I got in here -- they thought I might not be magic enough to come, you see. Great Uncle Algie was so pleased he bought me my toad."

On Y/N's side, Percy Weasley and Hermione were talking about lessons ("I do hope they start right away, there's so much to learn, I'm particularly interested in Transfiguration, you know, turning something into something else, of course, it's supposed to be very difficult-"; "You'll be starting small, just matches into needles and that sort of thing -- ").

Harry and Y/N, who were starting to feel warm and sleepy, looked up at   
the High Table again. Hagrid was drinking deeply from his goblet. Professor McGonagall was talking to Professor Dumbledore. Professor Quirrell, in his absurd turban, was talking to a teacher with greasy black hair, a hooked nose, and sallow skin.

It happened very suddenly. The hook-nosed teacher looked past Quirrell's turban straight into Harry's and Y/N's eyes -- and a sharp, hot pain shot across the scar on Y/N's and Harry's foreheads.

"Ouch!" Harry clapped a hand to his head as Y/N mirrored his actions.

"What is it?" asked Percy.

"N-nothing." Harry and Y/N said together

The pain had gone as quickly as it had come. Harder to shake off was the feeling Harry and Y/N had gotten from the teacher's look -- a feeling that he didn't like either of them at all.

"Who's that teacher talking to Professor Quirrell?" Harry asked Percy.

"Oh, you know Quirrell already, do you? No wonder he's looking so nervous, that's Professor Snape. He teaches Potions, but he doesn't want to -- everyone knows he's after Quirrell's job. Knows an awful lot about the Dark Arts, Snape."   
Harry and Y/N watched Snape for a while, but Snape didn't look at them again.

At last, the desserts too disappeared, and Professor Dumbledore got to his feet again. The hall fell silent.

"Ahern -- just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you.

"First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well."

Dumbledore's twinkling eyes flashed in the direction of the Weasley twins.

"I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors.

"Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch.

"And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death."

Harry and Y/N laughed, but they were two of the few who did.

"He's not serious?" Y/N muttered across Harry to Percy.

"Must be," said Percy, frowning at Dumbledore. "It's odd because he usually gives us a reason why we're not allowed to go somewhere -- the forest's full of dangerous beasts, everyone knows that. I do think he might have told us, prefects, at least."

"And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!" cried Dumbledore. Harry and Y/N noticed that the other teachers' smiles had become rather fixed.

Dumbledore gave his wand a little flick as if he was trying to get a fly off the end, and a long golden ribbon flew out of it, which rose high above the tables and twisted itself, snakelike, into words.

"Everyone picks their favorite tune," said Dumbledore, "and off we go!" And the school bellowed:

Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,  
Teach us something, please,  
Whether we be old and bald  
Or young with scabby knees,  
Our heads could do with filling  
With some interesting stuff,  
For now, they're bare and full of air,  
Dead flies and bits of fluff,  
So teach us things worth knowing,  
Bring back what we've forgotten,  
Just do your best, we'll do the rest,  
And learn until our brains all rot.

Everybody finished the song at different times. At last, only the Weasley twins were left singing along to a very slow funeral march. Dumbledore conducted their last few lines with his wand and when they had finished, he was one of those who clapped loudest.

"Ah, music," he said, wiping his eyes. "A magic beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you trot!"

The Gryffindor first years followed Percy through the chattering crowds, out of the Great Hall, and up the marble staircase. Harry's and Y/N's legs were like lead again, but only because they were so tired and full of food. They were too sleepy even to be surprised that the people in the portraits along the corridors whispered and pointed as they passed, or that twice Percy led them through doorways hidden behind sliding panels and hanging tapestries. They climbed more staircases, yawning and dragging their feet, Harry and Y/N were just wondering how much farther they had to go when they came to a sudden halt.

A bundle of walking sticks was floating in midair ahead of them, and as Percy took a step toward them they started throwing themselves at him.

"Peeves," Percy whispered to the first years. "A poltergeist." He raised his voice, "Peeves -- show yourself"

A loud, rude sound, like the air being let out of a balloon, answered. 

"Do you want me to go to the Bloody Baron?"

There was a pop, and a little man with wicked, dark eyes and a wide mouth appeared, floating cross-legged in the air, clutching the walking sticks.

"Oooooooh!" he said, with an evil cackle. "Ickle Firsties! What fun!"

He swooped suddenly at them. They all ducked.

"Go away, Peeves or the Baron'll hear about this, I mean it!" barked Percy.

Peeves stuck out his tongue and vanished, dropping the walking sticks on Neville's head.

They heard him zooming away, rattling coats of armor as he passed.

"You want to watch out for Peeves," said Percy, as they set off again. "The Bloody Baron's the only one who can control him, he won't even listen to us prefects. Here we are."

At the very end of the corridor hung a portrait of a very fat woman in a pink silk dress.   
"Password?" she said. "Caput Draconis," said Percy, and the portrait swung forward to reveal a round hole in the wall. They all scrambled through it -- Neville needed a leg up -- and found themselves in the Gryffindor common room, a cozy, round room full of squashy armchairs.

Percy directed the girls through one door to their dormitory and the boys through another. At the top of a spiral staircase -- they were obviously in one of the towers -- they found their beds at last: five four-posters hung with deep red, velvet curtains. Their trunks had already been brought up. Too tired to talk much, they pulled on their pajamas and fell into bed.

" Great food, isn't it?" Y/N muttered to Hermione through the hangings.

Y/N was going to ask Hermione if she'd had any of the F/D, but she fell asleep almost at once.

Perhaps Y/N had eaten a bit too much because She had a very strange dream. Harry was wearing Professor Quirrell's turban, which kept talking to him, telling him he and Y/N must transfer to Slytherin at once because it was their destiny. Harry told the turban that neither Harry nor Y/N wanted to be in Slytherin; it looked like it got heavier and heavier as he tried to pull it off until it seemed to tighten painfully -- and there was Malfoy, laughing at them as harry struggled to get it off while Y/N struggled to help Harry -then Malfoy turned into the hook-nosed teacher, Snape, whose laugh became high and cold -- there was a burst of green light and Y/N woke, sweating and shaking.

She rolled over and fell asleep again, and when she woke the next day, she didn't remember the dream at all.


	8. ~Year One~ ||Chapter eight||The Potions Master

"There, look."

"Where?"

"Next to the tall kid with the red hair."

"Wearing the glasses?"

"Did you see their faces?"

"Did you see their scars?"

Whispers followed Harry and Y/N from the moment they left their dormitories the next day. People lining up outside classrooms stood on tiptoe to get a look at them or doubled back to pass them in the corridors again, staring. Both Y/N and Harry wished they wouldn't because they were trying to concentrate on finding their way to classes.

There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump. Then some doors wouldn't open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that weren't really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. It was also very hard to remember where anything was because it all seemed to move around a lot. The people in the portraits kept going to visit each other, and Harry as well as Y/N were sure the coats of armor could walk.

The ghosts didn't help, either. It was always a nasty shock when one of them glided suddenly through a door you were trying to open. Nearly Headless Nick was always happy to point new Gryffindors in the right direction, but Peeves the Poltergeist was worth two locked doors and a trick staircase if you met him when you were late for class. He would drop wastepaper baskets on your head, pull rugs from under your feet, pelt you with bits of chalk, or sneak up behind you, invisible, grab your nose, and screech, "GOT YOUR CONK!"

Even worse than Peeves, if that was possible, was the caretaker, Argus Filch. Harry, Ron, and Y/N managed to get on the wrong side of him on their very first morning. Filch found them trying to force their way through a door that unluckily turned out to be the entrance to the out-of-bounds corridor on the third floor. He wouldn't believe they were lost, was sure they were trying to break into it on purpose and was threatening to lock them in the dungeons when they were rescued by Professor Quirrell, who was passing.

Filch owned a cat called Mrs. Norris, a scrawny, dust-colored creature with bulging, lamp-like eyes just like Filch's. She patrolled the corridors alone. Break a rule in front of her, put just one toe out of line, and she'd whisk off for Filch, who'd appear, wheezing, two seconds later. Filch knew the secret passageways of the school better than anyone (except perhaps the Weasley twins) and could pop up as suddenly as any of the ghosts. The students all hated him, and it was the dearest ambition of many to give Mrs. Norris a good kick.

And then, once you had managed to find them, there were the classes themselves. There was a lot more to magic, as Harry and Y/N quickly found out, than waving your wand and saying a few funny words.

They had to study the night skies through their telescopes every Wednesday at midnight and learn the names of different stars and the movements of the planets. Three times a week they went out to the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbology, with a dumpy little witch called Professor Sprout, where they learned how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi, and found out what they were used for. Easily the most boring class was History of Magic, which was the only one taught by a ghost. Professor Binns had been very old indeed when he had fallen asleep in front of the staff room fire and got up the next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him. Binns droned on and on while they scribbled down names and dates and got Emetic the Evil and Uric the Oddball mixed up.

Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was a tiny little wizard who had to stand on a pile of books to see over his desk. At the start of their first class, he took the roll call, and when he reached Harry's and Y/N's names he gave an excited squeak and toppled out of sight.

Professor McGonagall was again different. Harry and Y/N had been quite right to think she wasn't a teacher to cross. Strict and clever, she gave them a talking-to the moment they sat down in her first class.

"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts," she said. "Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned."

Then she changed her desk into a pig and back again. They were all very impressed and couldn't wait to get started, but soon realized they weren't going to be changing the furniture into animals for a long time. After taking a lot of complicated notes, they were each given a match and started trying to turn it into a needle. By the end of the lesson, only Hermione Granger and Y/N had made any difference to their matches; Professor McGonagall showed the class how the matches had gone all silver and pointy and gave Hermione and Y/N a rare smile.

The class everyone had really been looking forward to was Defense Against the Dark Arts, but Quirrell's lessons turned out to be a bit of a joke. His classroom smelled strongly of garlic, which everyone said was to ward off a vampire he'd met in Romania and was afraid would be coming back to get him one of these days. His turban, he told them, had been given to him by an African prince as a thank-you for getting rid of a troublesome zombie, but they weren't sure they believed this story. For one thing, when Seamus Finnigan asked eagerly to hear how Quirrell had fought off the zombie, Quirrell went pink and started talking about the weather; for another, they had noticed that a funny smell hung around the turban, and the Weasley twins insisted that it was stuffed full of garlic as well so that Quirrell was protected wherever he went.

Harry and Y/N were very relieved to find out that they weren't miles behind everyone else. Lots of people had come from Muggle families and, like them, hadn't had any idea that they were witches and wizards. There was so much to learn that even people like Ron didn't have much of a head start.

Friday was an important day for Harry, Ron, and Y/N. They finally managed to find their way down to the Great Hall for breakfast without getting lost once.

"What have we got today?" Harry and Y/N asked Ron as they poured sugar on their porridge.

"Double Potions with the Slytherins," said Ron. "Snape's Head of Slytherin House. They say he always favors them -- we'll be able to see if it's true."

"Wish McGonagall favored us," said Harry. Professor McGonagall was head of Gryffindor House, but it hadn't stopped her from giving them a huge pile of homework the day before.

Just then, the mail arrived. Harry and Y/N had gotten used to this by now, but it had given them a bit of a shock on the first morning, when about a hundred owls had suddenly streamed into the Great Hall during breakfast, circling the tables until they saw their owners, and dropping letters and packages onto their laps.

Hedwig and Rowena hadn't brought Harry or Y/N anything so far. They sometimes flew in to nibble harry and Y/N's ear and have a bit of toast before going off to sleep in the owlery with the other school owls. This morning, however, Hedwig fluttered down between the marmalade and the sugar bowl and dropped a note onto Harry's plate. Harry tore it open at once. It said, in a very untidy scrawl:

Dear Harry and Y/N,

I know you get Friday afternoons off, so would you like to come and have a cup of tea with me around three?

I want to hear all about your first week. Send us an answer back with Hedwig.

Hagrid

Harry and Y/N borrowed Ron's quill, scribbled Yes, please, see you later on the back of the note, and sent Hedwig off again.

It was lucky that Harry and Y/N had tea with Hagrid to look forward to because the Potions lesson turned out to be the worst thing that had happened to them so far.

At the start-of-term banquet, Harry and Y/N had gotten the idea that Professor Snape disliked them. By the end of the first Potions lesson, they knew they'd been wrong. Snape didn't dislike Harry and Y/N -- he hated them.

Potions lessons took place down in one of the dungeons. It was colder here than up in the main castle and would have been quite creepy enough without the pickled animals floating in glass jars all around the walls.

Snape, like Flitwick, started the class by taking the roll call, and like Flitwick, he paused at Harry's and Y/N's name.

"Ah, Yes," he said softly, "Harry Potter and Y/N. Our new -- celebrities."

Draco Malfoy and his friends Crabbe and Goyle sniggered behind their hands. Snape finished calling the names and looked up at the class. His eyes were black like Hagrid's, but they had none of Hagrid's warmth. They were cold and empty and made you think of dark tunnels.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making," he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word -- like Professor McGonagall, Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death -- if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

More silence followed this little speech. Harry and Ron exchanged looks with raised eyebrows. Hermione Granger and Y/N were on the edges of their seats and looked desperate to start proving that they weren't dunderheads.

"Potter!" said Snape suddenly. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Powdered root of what to an infusion of what? Harry glanced at Ron, who looked as stumped as he was; Hermione's and Y/N hand had shot into the air.

"I don't know, sir," said Harry.

Snape's lips curled into a sneer.

"Tut, tut -- fame clearly isn't everything."

He ignored Hermione's hand.

"Let's try L/N and Potter. potter, you first, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

Hermione stretched her hand as high into the air as it would go without her leaving her seat and y/n waited to get asked to answer, but Harry didn't have the faintest idea what a bezoar was. He tried not to look at Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, who were shaking with laughter.

"I don't know, sir," said Harry

"L/N, your turn, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

"A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons.so I would in the stomach of a goat"

"very...good L/N." snape then turned to harry.

"Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter?" Harry forced himself to keep looking straight into those cold eyes. He had looked through his books at the Dursleys, but did Snape expect him to remember everything in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi?

Snape was still ignoring Hermione's and quivering hand.

"What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

At this, Hermione and y/n stood up, their hands stretching toward the dungeon ceiling.

"I don't know," said Harry quietly. "I think Hermione or Y/n does, though, why don't you try one of them?"

A few people laughed; Harry caught Seamus's eye, and Seamus winked. Snape, however, was not pleased.

"Sit down," he snapped at Hermione and Y/N. "For your information, Potter, asphodel, and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons, as L/N said. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite. Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?"

There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment. Over the noise, Snape said, "And a point will be taken from Gryffindor House for your cheek, Potter."

Things didn't improve for the Gryffindors as the Potions lesson continued. Snape put them all into pairs and set them to mixing up a simple potion to cure boils. He swept around in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticizing almost everyone except Malfoy, whom he seemed to like. He was just telling everyone to look at the perfect way Malfoy had stewed his horned slugs when clouds of acid green smoke and a loud hissing filled the dungeon. Neville had somehow managed to melt Seamus's cauldron into a twisted blob, and their potion was seeping across the stone floor, burning holes in people's shoes. Within seconds, the whole class was standing on their stools while Neville, who had been drenched in the potion when the cauldron collapsed, moaned in pain as angry red boils sprang up all over his arms and legs.

"Idiot boy!" snarled Snape, clearing the spilled potion away with one wave of his wand. "I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?"

Neville whimpered as boils started to pop up all over his nose.

"Take him up to the hospital wing," Snape spat at Seamus. Then he rounded on Harry, Y/N, and Ron, who had been working next to Neville.

"You -- Potter, L/N -- why didn't you tell him not to add the quills? Thought he'd make you two look good if he got it wrong, did you? That's another point you've each lost for Gryffindor."

This was so unfair that Harry and Y/N opened their mouths to argue, but Ron kicked them behind their cauldron.

"Don't push it," he muttered, "I've heard Snape can turn very nasty."

As they climbed the steps out of the dungeon an hour later, Harry's and Y/N's minds were racing and their spirits were low. they'd lost three points for Gryffindor in their very first week -- why did Snape hate them so much?

"Cheer up," said Ron, "Snape's always taking points off Fred and George. Can I come and meet Hagrid with you two?"

At five to three they left the castle and made their way across the grounds. Hagrid lived in a small wooden house on the edge of the forbidden forest. A crossbow and a pair of galoshes were outside the front door.

When Harry knocked they heard a frantic scrabbling from inside and several booming barks. Then Hagrid's voice rang out, saying, "Back, Fang -- back."

Hagrid's big, hairy face appeared in the crack as he pulled the door open.

"Hang on," he said. "Back, Fang."

He let them in, struggling to keep a hold on the collar of an enormous black boarhound.

There was only one room inside. Hams and pheasants were hanging from the ceiling, a copper kettle was boiling on the open fire, and in the corner stood a massive bed with a patchwork quilt over it.

"Make yourselves at home," said Hagrid, letting go of Fang, who bounded straight at Ron and started licking his ears. Like Hagrid, Fang was clearly not as fierce as he looked.

"This is Ron," Harry told Hagrid, who was pouring boiling water into a large teapot and putting rock cakes onto a plate.

"Another Weasley, eh?" said Hagrid, glancing at Ron's freckles. I spent half me life chasin' yer twin brothers away from the forest."

The rock cakes were shapeless lumps with raisins that almost broke their teeth, but Harry, Ron, and Y/N pretended to be enjoying them as they told Hagrid all about their first lessons. Fang rested his head on Harry's knee and drooled all over his robes.

Harry, Y/N, and Ron were delighted to hear Hagrid call Filch "that old git."

"An' as fer that cat, Mrs. Norris, I'd like ter introduce her to Fang sometime. D'ye know, every time I go up ter the school, she follows me everywhere? Can't get rid of her -- Filch puts her up to it."

Harry and Y/N told Hagrid about Snape's lesson. Hagrid, like Ron, told Harry Y/N not to worry about it, that Snape liked hardly any of the students.

"But he seemed to really hate us."

"Rubbish!" said Hagrid. "Why should he?"

Yet Harry and Y/N couldn't help thinking that Hagrid didn't quite meet their eyes when he said that.

"How's yer brother Charlie?" Hagrid asked Ron. "I liked him a lot -- great with animals."

Harry and Y/N wondered if Hagrid had changed the subject on purpose. While Ron told Hagrid all about Charlie's work with dragons, Harry picked up a piece of paper that was lying on the table under the tea cozy. It was a cutting from the Daily Prophet :

GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN LATEST

Investigations continue into the break-in at Gringotts on 31 July, widely believed to be the work of Dark wizards or witches unknown.

Gringotts goblins today insisted that nothing had been taken. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied the same day.

"But we're not telling you what was in there, so keep your noses out if you know what's good for you," said a Gringotts spokesgoblin this afternoon.

Harry and Y/N remembered Ron telling them on the train that someone had tried to rob Gringotts, but Ron hadn't mentioned the date.

"Hagrid!" said Harry, "that Gringotts break-in happened on our birthday! It might've been happening while we were there!"

There was no doubt about it, Hagrid definitely didn't meet Harry's or Y/N's eyes this time. He grunted and offered them another rock cake. Harry and y/n read the story again. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied earlier that same day. Hagrid had emptied vault seven hundred and thirteen if you could call it emptying, taking out that grubby little package. Had that been what the thieves were looking for?

As Harry,y/n, and Ron walked back to the castle for dinner, their pockets weighed down with rock cakes they'd been too polite to refuse, Harry and Y/N thought that none of the lessons they had so far had given them as much to think about as tea with Hagrid. Had Hagrid collected that package just in time? Where was it now? And did Hagrid know something about Snape that he didn't want to tell Harry and Y/N?


End file.
